


*v**k 









LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



shelf, _zrLy^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/introductiontopeOOufer 



NJ ^^^^ <^^^^ - 



INTRODUCfrlok 



TO 



THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART 

(By CHR. UFER) 



AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE FIFTH GERMAN 

EDITION, UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 

HERB ART CLUB 

By J. C. ZINSER, M.S. 



EDITED BY 

CHAELES DE GAEMO, Ph.D. 

PRESIDENT OF SWARTHMOBE COLLEGE, SWAKTHMORE, PA. 







BOSTON, U.S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHEES 

1894 



Li 
U4- 



Copyright, 1894, 
By D. C. HEATH & CO. 



Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston. 



Presswork by Rockwell & Churchill, Boston. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



:>*><<: 



PAGE 

Editor's Preface v 

Introduction ix 



Part I. 



Psychological Basis. 



1. Production and Apperception of Ideas 1 

2. Memory 14 

3. Desire and Will 26 



Part II. 

Ethical Basis. The Five Ethical Ideas. 

1. Idea of Inner Freedom 42 

2. Idea of Efficiency, or Perfection of Will 44 

3. Idea of Good Will 46 

4. Idea of Justice 48 

5. Idea of Equity 49 

iii 



IV CONTENTS. 

Part III. 
Pedagogical Application. 

PAGE 

1. Development of Interest 54 

2. Choice of Studies 64 

3. The Culture Epochs and Concentration 67 

4. Methods of Teaching — the Formal Steps 81 

5. Moral Training 96 

Part IV. 
Special Methods. Examples of Concentration. 

A. Voyages of Discovery 105 

1. Character- forming Material 105 

2. German 106 

3. Geography 108 

4. Nature Studies 110 

5. Arithmetic 112 

6. Geometry 113 

7. Drawing 114 

B. The Age of the Reformation 114 

1. Culture Material 114 

2. Language 115 

3. Geography . . . 116 

4. Nature Study 118 

5. Singing 119 

6. Arithmetic 120 

7. Drawing 121 

C. Illustrative Lesson on the Number 3 (by Dr. Karl 

Just, Altenburg) 121 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



>XXc 



American teachers need an introduction to the study of 
Herbart, first of all because of the organic nature of his 
systematized thought, but primarily because of the inher- 
ent importance of the ideas themselves. It is difficult to 
get the full significance of any portion of an organized sys- 
tem without having an understanding of the point of view 
from which the author sees the whole. This introduction, 
therefore, which in simple, concrete manner gives a bird's- 
eye view of the ends and means of education as seen by 
Herbart, will serve as a reliable guide not only to the works 
of Herbart himself, but also to the writings of his school. 

With Herbart and his followers, two important things 
stand out with especial prominence : (1) the development of 
sound moral character through the activities of the school 
as the end of education; and (2) the apperception, or mental 
assimilative power of the child, as the only safe guide to 
the means through which this end is to be reached. 

It should not for a moment be imagined that the disciples 
of Herbart have any scheme for superimposing upon intel- 
lectual education a moral training, such as might be sup- 
posed to be effected by a conformity to ritual, or other 
church device, or by so-called ethical instruction. Nothing 
could be further from their thought. On the contrary, 
their conception is that moral training should come through 
instruction in the studies of the curriculum, taken in con- 



vi editor's preface. 

junction with the regular school discipline. In other words, 
the common branches, aided by the ordinary discipline of the 
school, are to be made the means of revealing to the child 
the moral order of the world, both with respect to his re- 
sponsibility as an individual and as a member of a complex 
social organization. Through this study and discipline he 
is to discover his moral relations both to individuals and to 
the social, family, religious, civic, and business groups, with 
which every child, under the conditions of modern civiliza- 
tion, must sooner or later enter into active co-operation. 
Not only is there to be an intellectual perception of moral 
relations, but moral ideas are gradually to be transformed 
into moral ideals. This process takes place through the 
development of moral disposition, which is occasioned and 
guided by judicious appeals to the feelings, and by the cul- 
tivation of inherent interest in the things that tend to pro- 
duce the best and most useful members of society. Right 
disposition is to crystallize into moral habit through hold- 
ing the child to right conduct by means of rational, love- 
tempered authority. These are the high moral purposes 
that the followers of Herbart seek to realize. To this end 
they propose no elaborate ethical system, in whose intrica- 
cies teacher and pupil alike are in danger of being lost, but 
they appeal rather to the most universal facts of every-day 
experience as a basis for the few but comprehensive ethical 
principles on which they base their efforts at moral educa- 
tion. To cultivate moral insight and disposition, they de- 
pend upon the child's own spontaneous judgment of right 
and wrong as, one by one, the various types of moral situ- 
ation are brought to his attention by the ever broadening 
work of the school. 

The practical means, founded upon psychology, through 
which they seek to reach these ends, are of the most vital 
importance to teachers. They comprise briefly : (1) the 



EDITOR S PREFACE. Vll 

selection of the subject-matter of education, or the various 
studies ; (2) their correlation, or articulation, including, of 
course, the selection of the topics to be taught and the 
sequence of their presentation; (3) the determination of 
the most rational methods of teaching the matter thus 
selected and articulated ; and (4) the consideration of the 
discipline of the school as a factor in moral training. These 
are the important topics in education, and to them modern 
teachers are giving increased attention. Any system of 
thought tha.t makes our efforts to develop character more 
effective, and which at the same time furnishes us with 
more useful methods of selecting, arranging, co-ordinating, 
and presenting knowledge, is worthy of our best study. 

Though the author of the present volume has not been 
able to make all hard things easy, he has certainly rendered 
it possible for the thoughtful teacher to make a profitable 
beginning. His introduction, whose translation is herewith 
presented, has been the bridge over which thousands of 
teachers have passed to independent study and research. 
It is the hope of both translator and editor that it will 
prove as useful on this side of the Atlantic as on the 
other. 

CHAELES De GAEMO. 

Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa., 
October, 1894. 



INTRODUCTION. 



>X«c 



Among all of nature's beings man alone is capable of 
education. Animals cannot in any true sense be educated ; 
they can only be trained. Education is an influence upon 
man. When a person is spoken of as well-educated, we do 
not think of bodily qualities. The educating influence has 
reference to the soul, and concerns itself with the body only 
in so far as the care of the latter is immediately serviceable 
to the former. Education is an influence upon the soul of 
the pupil. It demands much time, for by it many and vari- 
ous things are to be done. He who would enter upon a 
great and complex undertaking, first makes a plan that he 
means to follow. So, too, is it in education — a great whole 
of ceaseless labor, which from one end to the other is to be 
carefully attended to, and in which it is not sufficient 
merely to have avoided some blunders. It consists in an 
intentional systematic influence upon the soul of the pupil. 
In order to be able to influence the soul successfully, one 
must be acquainted with it. The educator, in order to get 
his bearings, requires the aid of psychology ; it is a science 
auxiliary to pedagogy. Herbart says of it : Psychology is 
the first auxiliary science of use to the educator ; we must 
possess it before we can say of a single recitation what has 
been rightly done, what has gone amiss. 

Whoever undertakes a work, has a definite aim that he 
strives to reach. The educator also must set before himself 



X INTRODUCTION. 

such an aim and must never lose sight of it. The teacher 
wishes to lead his pupil to moral conduct and to secure for 
him the ability, by-and-by, to persevere in the course en- 
tered upon and independently to pursue it further. To a 
clear recognition of the aim in general, as well as in its 
several parts, the science of good and evil, called ethics, or 
practical philosophy, helps us. This must be designated 
the second science auxiliary to pedagogy. Herbart was the 
first to found pedagogy upon psychology and ethics. The 
latter shows the aim of culture, the former the means and 
hindrances. From a Christian standpoint ethics connects 
itself with the science of religion; hence the latter has been 
rightly called by Ziller the third auxiliary science of peda- 
gogy. 

Queries. 

1. Is it possible to demonstrate, on the basis of mental phenomena, 
that there is an essential difference between the human soul and that 
of the animal ? 

2. Is the animal conditioned more favorably or more unfavorably 
than man, so far as the acquisition of ideas is concerned ? 

3. Is not the psychology of the present too uncertain in its results, 
to offer itself to pedagogy as an auxiliary science ? 

4. Is the aim of education simple or complex ? On what grounds 
is the science of religion necessary for teacher and pupil ? 



PART I. 
PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 

We have defined education as an influence upon the soul 
of man. But then, is there a soul ? Or is materialism right 
when it declares that everything which we call " psychical" 
is nothing but a condition of the corporeal ? This question 
cannot be answered exhaustively and at the same time 
briefly ; it is, however, possible to indicate here why the 
existence of a separate soul-essence must be assumed. 

Before me lies a piece of sugar. The rays of light 
reflected from it penetrate the different parts of the eye 
and reach at last the retina. Thus far the process has 
been a physical (optical) one ; and now begins the physio- 
logical part. The retina contains the extremities of the 
optic nerve, — countless microscopic corpuscles, — which on 
account of their form are called rods and cones. 1 From 
these the sensation caused by ether vibrations passes over 
to the optic nerve and by means of this reaches the brain. 
The vibration of a certain brain fiber is, according to the 
doctrine of materialism, to be regarded as synonymous with 
the consciousness of the sensation. 

1 The number of optic nerve-fibers in the retina is estimated to be 
about eight hundred thousand, and for each fiber there are about seven 
■cones, one hundred rods, and seven pigment cells. The points of the 
rods and cones are directed to the choroid, or away from the entering 
light, and dip into the pigmentary layer. They, with the pigmentary 
layer, are the elements mediating the change of ethereal vibrations 
into nerve-force ; out of these nerve-vibrations the brain fashions the 

1 



2 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

If I lay this piece of sugar on my tongue, the gustatory 
nerves are excited ; they conduct the impression to the 
brain, and there also set in vibration certain brain fibers, 
but not the same ones that were excited by the optic nerve. 

When we think of a piece of sugar, we remember that it 
is white and sweet and heavy. From this we see, that the 
impressions have not merely set in motion different brain 
fibers, but that in addition to this a union has taken place. 
This is conceivable only on the supposition of a simple es- 
sence, different from the body, which we call Soul. To the 
physical and physiological processes is added also the psy- 
chological. Materialism, which denies the existence of a 
distinct soul-being, is unable to explain the above-mentioned 
union of impressions. 

Though we must distinguish, on the one hand, between 
body and soul, it must, on the other hand, not be overlooked, 
that between them a very intimate interaction takes place. 
Not to detain with details, we will only mention that a 
diseased condition of the body reacts unfavorably upon the 
soul, and vice versa. Just so does bodily vigor act reviv- 
ingly upon the soul and mental freshness acts revivingly 
and stimulatingly upon the body. 

Let us now turn our attention exclusively to the consid- 
eration of the psychic life. 

When we compare an adult with a three-year-old child, 
we recognize that the former has a much richer soul-content 
than the latter, and the three-year-old child has a richer 
soul-content than a one-year-old. We may then conjecture 
that the new-born child has no (appreciable) soul-content 
at all. x According to the opinion of Herbart, which in part 

sensations of light, form and color. — Dr. Brubaker, "Physiology," 
p. 158. — Translator. 

1 Everything which really is exists either in connection with some 
other thing, or it exists in itself. Color, weight, odor, have existence 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 3 

was based on immediate experience, but in part upon the 
very difficult science of metaphysics, the soul has originally 
no content what ever . The production of a content begins 
as soon as the soul enters into union with the body. 

As the soul per se (in its essential quality) 1 has no con- 
tent, there can of course be no mention of faculties of the 
soul per se. All human souls are in their quality alike. 
Only it must be kept constantly in mind, that there is as 
yet no thought of any connection of soul and body when 
Herbart and his school speak of an absence of faculties in 
the soul. The teacher is concerned only with a union of 
body and soul, and there the special faculties and capaci- 
ties are of course present. 

We speak first of an inherent capacity. This has its basis 
in the constitution of the body. Just as there are no two 
human bodies that are in all respects exactly alike, so it is 
certain that the mental life of each person is sui generis, 

only in some other, self -existing object, to the constitution of which 
they belong. On the other hand, those materials with which color, etc., 
are connected, exist per se. The latter are called substances (essences, 
realities), the former, adherencies (accidents). The connection be- 
tween the substance and its accidents, which in popular language is 
expressed by the auxiliary verb " have," is called inherence. The soul 
is a substance, its content an adherence. 

1 The reader will bear in mind that this is a mooted question. The 
Duke of Argyll, after citing some curious instances of instinct and 
mimicry, continues ("Unity of Nature," Alden, 1884, p. 54) : "In the 
face of them it is now no longer denied that in all such cases ' Innate 
Ideas ' do exist, and that ' Pre-established Harmonies ' do prevail in 
nature. These old doctrines, so long ridiculed and denied, have come 
to be admitted, and the new philosophy is satisfied with attempts to 
explain how these ' Ideas ' came to be innate, and how these ' Har- 
monies ' came to be pre-established. The explanation is, that though 
the efficiency of experience as the cause or source of Instinct must be 
given up as regards the individual, we may keep it as regards the race 
to which the individual belongs." — Tr. 



4 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

since the body reacts upon the soul. To the inherent facul- 
ties belongs, for instance, the special capacity for music, 
which has its chief basis in the corresponding formation of 
the ear. 

But there are also acquired faculties, capacities. They 
come into existence through the peculiar situation into 
which the person is placed by his birth, and which is 
necessarily peculiar to each human being. The child's en- 
vironment is composed of two factors, the influence of the 
place where, and the society in which, he grows up. We 
see the significance of these circumstances, for instance, in 
the case of Linne, whose father owned a very beautiful 
garden. His mother quieted him, when a little child, with 
flowers ; his father saw to it that he noticed the plants, 
that he learned their names and remembered them. Zin- 
zendorf was brought up in the home of his grandmother, 
where he daily heard portions of the Bible read, and where 
Spencer, Francke and Canstein liked to associate with him. 
Inherent capacity is something inherited ; the faculties we 
have acquired in the earliest years are an external appro- 
priation. 

From the above it follows that two pupils with exactly 
the same educational influences would develop absolutely 
alike, providing that 

(1) their bodily constitutions were completely identical; 

(2) their acquired capabilities were the same ; 

(3) the hidden and uncontrollable influences which assist 
in education were in their minutest details identical as to 
quality and degree. But as these two factors never en- 
tirely agree, children of the same environment must develop 
differently. The educator cannot make of his pupil what 
he will; he cannot form him entirely according to his 
mind (as Helvetius, not Herbart, claims), for the inherent 
and acquired powers, together called individuality, resist 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 5 

his influence when he has reached a certain limit ; there are 
in addition to this all manner of influences that hinder the 
teacher and cross his plans, so that the pupil does not even 
become entirely known to him. The power of education 
must not be regarded as greater than it is, nor on the other 
hand, as less. 

All educating influence affects the soul by means of the 
body. The senses are the gateways through which the 
psychic life makes its entrance. Nothing is in the mind 
that was not previously in the senses. From this it follows, 
that the better the senses of a person are, the richer and 
the more active can the soul-content be ; the feebler or 
the fewer the senses are, the greater the loss to the mental 
life. The loss of the sense of sight alone would reduce the 
sense-percepts to one-tenth. A human being without senses 
would never obtain any soul-content. But merely to have 
good senses is not sufficient for mental culture ; one must 
also come into contact with sense-objects. The mental 
activities are always developed in parallelism with the 
sense-percepts and in accordance with them as their proto- 
types. The preparation which serves as a basis for all 
mental work subsequently undertaken for the purpose of 
intellectual culture, is the elaboration of the ideas that we 
obtain from sense intuition (taking the word in its wider 
sense) . 

Every activity of the soul passes through the medium 
of the sensorium, from the first taking up of the objective 
in the external world, up to the highest manifestation of 
the internal, or the subjective. From this standpoint also 
Jean Paul's " Invisible Lodge " must be judged. ' This is 
a pedagogical romance in which the author seeks to answer 
the question, how a boy, by means of his native ability, 
would probably develop, who, removed from the harmful 
influences of the world, was brought up in an under- 



6 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

ground chamber. Graphically as Jean Paul pictures the 
moment when the boy for the first time emerges upon the 
upper world in all its beauty, he has, nevertheless, forgotten 
that a boy who has not had the privilege of collecting a 
large store of concrete sense experiences is not in the least 
educable, but is utterly incapable of interpreting the ex- 
ternal world. A case in point is Kaspar Hauser. Almost 
his entire youth he had been obliged to spend in a dark 
room. When after his liberation he was induced from a 
tower at Nuremberg to gaze upon the beautiful landscape, 
he turned away at once with evident disgust. Questioned 
later as to his conduct, he said : " When I looked tow- 
ard the windows, it always seemed as if a board had been 
erected very close before my eyes, and upon this a painter 
had spattered his brushes of white, green, blue, yellow and 
red, all in motley confusion. Individual objects, as I see 
them., I could not then distinguish. I convinced myself 
later during my walks that what I had so seen were 
really fields, mountains and houses." The senses also 
require fostering care and exercise. They must be opened 
like a canal or a sluice, in order that the external world 
may enter into the soul. They must be rendered keen 
like a photographic apparatus, in order that the thou- 
sandfold things of the outer world may impress them- 
selves upon the soul sharply, clearly and permanently, in 
images. 

If we look into our mental life, we shall find without 
trouble the following : Something seems to take place 
within us, without our expending either active or passive 
force ; this is perception. Something else seems to happen 
to us, so that we suffer under it. This is feeling. Another 
thing seems to proceed from us as our real acting. This 
may be called in general, striving. 

In the older psychology representation (thinking), feel- 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 7 

ing and striving (willing), were regarded as separate 
powers of the soul. Herbart, on the contrary, took the 
position that these three activities were only conditions of 
a common fundamental substance. He based his argument 
upon experience, metaphysics and mathematics. We can 
at this place make a beginning only of the exposition of 
the Herbartian theory of psychic life upon the basis of 
experience. 

We will first consider Representation. Ideas are formed 
through the medium of the senses. If I take a piece of 
sugar in my hand, I get the notion of its weight. If I look 
at it, I get the notion of its whiteness. If I put it into my 
mouth, I perceive its sweetness. The notions of heavy, 
white and sweet, which in their separation are also called 
percepts, are in the simple soul combined into the image of 
sugar. This image formed from separate perceptions is 
the compound of all the perceptions which we have of an 
object. Just as the percepts mediated by different senses 
have been the result, not of a simple, but of a compound 
act, so, too, the percepts mediated by the same sense are of a 
compound nature. For instance, if I am to form a percept 
of a rose-bush, many perceptions must be made of the red, 
green, gray, etc. All the sensations together give us then 
the sense perception of the rose-bush. 

Every sense is accessible only to certain excitations. 
Suitable to sight are the light-rays ; these we perceive with 
varying brightness and color. If I see a white sphere, the 
ray of light emanating from that point of the surface 
next to me is brightest. All points farther removed send 
darker rays. Because in other instances of a similar con- 
dition of light-rays I have convinced myself of the sphe- 
ricity of a given object, I conclude now, that the present 
object, at least on the side turned toward me, has a spheri- 
cal surface. Therefore, when I ascribe to a body a spherical 



8 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

form on the basis of my sight-impression, I have from the 
arrangement of the light-rays inferred the form of the 
object, but I have not perceived the form directly. 

The auditory nerve is excited by sound vibrations. If 
these are regular, as, for instance, in a guitar string that 
has been caused to vibrate, the mind perceives a tone. In 
moving a chair, by which irregular vibrations are produced, 
there is caused in the mind the total-impression of noise. 
In compound tone phenomena (harmonies) the individual 
sensations blend into one total-sensation, which can grad- 
ually resolve itself into the sensations of partial tones. 
The chord CEG- causes in the mind a total-sensation in 
which the three tones assert themselves simultaneously; 
but if each is to be heard distinctly, it can only be done 
in the form of sequence. 1 

The organ of the sense of taste is principally the tongue 
with its numerous papillae, in which the extremities of the 
gustatory nerves ramify. They are excitable only by sub- 
stances in a fluid state, chiefly those in chemical solution. 
For mental development the sense of taste, though not 
superfluous, is of but slight importance. But to the body 
it proves very serviceable. The same is true of the sense 
of smell. The olfactory nerves are excited by a chemical 
process upon the mucous membrane, in which oxygen is 
most important, for only such substances smell as combine 
easily with oxygen. Taste and smell often influence each 
other. 

In feeling, we distinguish touch and general sensibility. 
The tactile sense is most highly developed in the tongue, 
the finger tips and the lips. 



1 The sense of hearing is an analyzing sense, inasmuch as it is able 
to resolve a complex tone-mass into its component parts. This has 
been demonstrated especially by Helmholtz. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 9 

A sight perception is often considered uncertain until the 
sense of touch has been consulted. This is the reason, per- 
haps, why every person possesses the inclination to touch 
objects of sight with the hand; witness, for instance, the 
stereotyped warnings placarded in all museums. For men- 
tal development, therefore, the sense of touch is of great 
importance. 

With the general sensibility are to be reckoned the pain 
sensations of the skin, and the muscle sensations. Upon 
the latter the movement of the limbs depends ; by means of 
them also the organs of speech in singing are brought into 
appropriate position to produce any desired tone. The better 
trained the organs of speech are, that is, the more delicate 
their muscular sensibility, the purer and more certain is 
the singing. In unaccustomed bodily labor we easily grow 
weary, because in the absence of a delicate feeling in the 
muscles thus concerned, we employ partly too much and 
partly too little, and therefore useless, force. 

That part of a sense-perception which remains in the 
mind after the excitation which has caused the perception 
has ceased, is called a percept, or perception. We acquire 
percepts of sweet, red, white, etc. ; if such simple percepts 
are combined (in the case of sugar, white, heavy, sweet), 
there results a complex sense-percept or intuition (An- 
sehauung). But the intuition is always the perception of 
the individual thing ; of this oak, of that pine. We have a 
separate image of each of the various trees of our garden. 
But there is also an image that fits them all (the concept, 
Begriff). While the intuition is individual, the image of 
the last-named sort is general, abstract. Ideas can there- 
fore be divided into two main groups, concrete and abstract 
(percepts and concepts). , The concrete again separate 
themselves into simple and complex perceptions. 

Ideas form the content of the mind ; but the expression 



10 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

content is not to be understood as if something had loosed 
itself from the external objects, which now had gotten from 
without into the mind or soul. In consequence of the 
excitation, there is formed in the mind a certain state or 
condition. Ideas, therefore, are soul conditions, or states. 
The soul is their bearer (the substance or essence of the 
ideas). The ideas meet in the simple soul. If I see to-day 
a tulip and to-morrow another just like it, I have not, there- 
fore, two images of the tulip but only one, which after the 
second observation is clearer than after the first. Like per- 
ceptions, therefore, are blended ; they become one, which is 
also a clearer one. 

Not all images are identical ; many are similiar to each 
other, i.e., they have like and unlike compound parts. If I 
see a square table and a rectangular one, the similar parts 
of the images unite and stand forth clearer (the four feet, 
the board, etc.) ; the unlike parts, the notions of the rec- 
tangular and square form, also seek to come into clearness, 
but since neither will allow the other to advance, the unlike 
parts combat each other, and the similar rise into unhin- 
dered clearness. In the similar we forget the dissimilar, 
at least it requires a certain exertion in order to represent 
dissimilar things clearly. We say : Similar representations 
blend or fuse. The fusion takes place most easily when 
the representations appear at nearly the same time. 

But there are also notions which are quite incapable of 
being compared, as heavy, white, sweet. There can be no 
thought of fusion here, because there are no like parts. 
But if they appear in consciousness at about the same time, 
they form a cohering group, a complication, as in the case 
of sugar. At a county fair we see the booths of the trinket 
vender ; the race-course and the multitude of men, women 
and children ; we hear the noise of voices and the cry of 
the grotesque fakir; we smell the odor of flowers and of 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 11 

tobacco smoke ; we taste food and drink. These representa- 
tions together form the complication of the comity fair. 

If I observe a plant with close attention, I think of noth- 
ing else ; but if I am disturbed in this activity, the idea of 
the plant disappears ; it makes room for the ideas which, for 
instance, a conversation gives rise to. The idea has been 
displaced, arrested by others ; we say also, it has sunken, 
and understand by this, that its clearness has gradually 
diminished, until I am no longer conscious of it. If the 
disturber goes away, I easily recall the idea again, without 
looking at the plant directly. The representation becomes 
still clearer, and soon fills my entire consciousness again; 
now the ideas raised by the previous conversation have in 
turn sunken. An idea sinks, therefore, when it is displaced 
by another ; though it fades, for the time being, from con- 
sciousness, it does not disappear from the soul, but presently 
rises again. Precisely speaking, but one concept stands in 
the foreground of consciousness at a time j the others have 
disappeared ; they are below the threshold of consciousness, 
or they are in the condition of sinking or of rising. 1 We 
speak, therefore, of a narrowness of consciousness. 

The ideas are never all in a state of rest, but some are in 
flux. We say of our thoughts, however, they are at rest, 
or in equilibrium when no extraordinary hastening of the 
stream of ideas takes place. 

Even if an idea has temporarily disappeared from con- 
sciousness, it can, as the example above shows, return again ; 
it can be reproduced. The process of reproduction takes 
place according to definite laws, first discovered by Aris- 
totle. 

If I look upon a mountain scene, which has similarity to 

1 Lazarus maintains that only a small number of ideas can be in 
consciousness at the same time, but not merely one idea alone. 



12 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

one previously observed, the image of the latter will soon 
stand before my soul again : Laiv of Similarity. The want 
and poverty of the Prodigal suggested to him. the comfort 
and abundance of his father's home : Laiv of Contrast. 

After Pharaoh had released the butler from prison, the 
latter soon forgot what Joseph had urged upon him. when 
he interpreted the dreams. Pharaoh's dream subsequently 
reminded him of his own and its interpretation, and then 
he recalled also Joseph's request made at the same time : 
Law of Coexistence, or Synchronism. 1 

If we have thoroughly learned in their usual sequence 
the (German) prepositions governing the genitive case 
(unweit, mittels, kraft, etc.), one word will draw into con- 
sciousness the next immediately following, because in com- 
mitting them, it has always appeared in that order : Laiv of 
Succession, or Sequence. 

Every idea continues in the soul; arresting an idea is 
merely binding it, rendering it latent, not annihilating it. 

A concept or idea may be compared to an elastic spring, 
which may be pressed down and which then remains in this 
position as long as the pressure upon it continues, but which 
bounds upward as soon as the pressure is released. If an 
idea rises above the threshold of consciousness of its own 
accord, we speak of an immediate reproduction (liberation = 
rising-free [freisteigen] of the concept). Here are two 
cases to be distinguished. The first case we have before 
us, for instance, in waking from sleep, when the thoughts 
come forth of themselves, or on returning to our business, 
after an interruption, when the concepts of the objects with 
which we have been busy, rise anew of themselves, after 

1 Who has not had an experience such as I have passed through, 
when in later years of manhood a bouquet of old-fashioned flowers, 
which to us children had been a delight, has often by its familiar odors 
given ineffable glimpses of ecstasy into the divine past of childhood ? 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 13 

they had been for awhile displaced. In these examples the 
track for the rising concept has, so to speak, become clear of 
itself. Let us now consider the second case. Let a concept 
A be depressed by another concept B. Now let an idea C 
from without, not fusible with B, enter into consciousness. 
A struggle now takes place between B and C, the result of 
which is a mutual arresting ; by this arresting the previ- 
ously oppressed concept profits and rises above the thresh- 
old of consciousness. The arrested idea is liberated by 
the arrester. Opposed to the immediate reproduction is 
the mediate. This takes place when an idea in conscious- 
ness draws into consciousness another which was already 
previously connected with it. The idea which causes the 
return is called auxiliary. When ideas are so related that 
the one will draw the other after it, we say: they cling 
together, they are knotted together, they are associated. 
The associations formed by fusion are the most permanent ; 
while, on the other hand, in the case of complications or 
idea-groups which have only an external connection, a link 
may easily be lost. 

The reproduction of ideas is not in all persons equally 
lively, nor in the same person at different times. In some 
cases it may be accelerated by artificial means, for instance, 
by the moderate use of spirituous drinks. So, too, it maybe 
checked. In the fable by Hagedorn, the miser, when he 
sees what the monkey has done with his gold, gets so be- 
side himself with rage, that he can no longer speak. 

"Let me but get thee, thief, thy blood — " 
Here stopped his rage the verbal flood. 

So many ideas crowd into consciousness at the same time, 
that at last no one of them has predominating clearness. 
Strong sense excitations also have at times the same effect. 
For this reason the unpracticed speaker looks upon a fixed 



14 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

point so as not to lose the thread of his discourse. It is 
well known that diseases of the nerves weaken the power 
of mental reproduction. 

Memory is the faculty the mind has of preserving ideas 
unchanged, and of reproducing them. 

We can also impress a thing upon the memory by observ- 
ing the connection of facts. Thus the superscriptions of 
a well-known Bible story are easily remembered : 1. God 
calleth Abram. 2. He departeth with Lot from Haran. 
3. He journey eth through Canaan. 4. He is driven by 
famine to Egypt. 5. Abram and Lot return from Egypt, 
etc. In learning the cohesion of ideas, we notice the in- 
ternal connection of the matter : we learn intelligently, 
judiciously (from judicium, judgment) . One kind of mem- 
ory (better of reproduction) is, therefore, the judicious. 

If we have something in which there is no connection 
to commit to memory, we must help ourselves in another 
way. In order to learn the names of the rivers which rise 
in the Fichtelgebirge we remember the word mens, and with 
the assistance of this word we shall easily reproduce the 
names Main, Eger, Naab and Saale. The words, "Every 
good boy does finely," will fix the names of the notes which 
have their position upon lines. Here we have created an 
artificial connection between the really unconnected. This 
manner of learning is called artificial, or ingenious, because 
the ingenium, or wit, seeks resemblances between things 
often lying far remote from each other. The second kind 
of memory, therefore, is the ingenious. 

But there are cases when we can learn neither judiciously 
nor ingeniously ; as, for instance, lists of words such as 
prepositions, prefixes and suffixes, etc. Such are to be 
learned in their given order of sequence by many repeti- 
tions alone. The sequence will become the stronger, the 
oftener the list has been repeated. By association one 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 15 

word will draw the other^ and that the next, into conscious- 
ness. This is mechanical memory. 

These three kinds of memory find their application in 
school; most of all the judicious. In the case of the 
ingenious memory, which may sometimes be of good service, 
we must not, of course, overlook the fact that a second thing- 
must be learned in order to retain the first. Of a good 
memory several things are required: The process of com- 
mitting must not be too difficult (ease) ; what is committed 
must remain unchanged (faithfulness) ; the thing learned 
should be permanent — the memory must be ready to serve, 
i.e., the thing learned must be reproducible at any moment ; 
finally, the memory should be extensive. All these qualities 
combined are found only in the rarest instances. Thus 
ease and permanency usually exclude each other, which 
may be explained by the fact that a rapid fusion of ideas 
does not take place so thoroughly as a slow one. A good 
memory is attained, if we take pains to bring new ideas 
into intimate connection with older ones. The passionate 
novel reader weakens his memory immensely because the 
rapidity and haste of his reading leave him no time for 
thorough performance of the process of appropriation. If 
the ideas enter into no connection, then the acquired material 
has no value, because it is subjected too slightly to the laws 
of reproduction ; it also fades too readily from consciousness 
because it has no points of attachment. 

But the memory can also be strengthened through practice. 
He who would thoroughly commit a thing to memory, 
must watch over it, lest other ideas crowd themselves 
between the members of what he wishes to memorize and 
thus hinder their connections. This requires a high 
degree of self-control, which can be the result only of long- 
continued practice. 

When Joseph bound one of his brothers, the others said : 



16 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

" We are verily guilty concerning our brother/' and Eeuben 
said further : " Spake I not unto you," etc. In the soul of 
Eeuben rose again the image of that occurrence, and he had 
at the same time the consciousness that it had taken place 
earlier. That was remembering. We can therefore call 
remembering the reproduction of an idea, if we are at the 
same time conscious that we have acquired the latter earlier. 
It can be voluntary or involuntary. If it is brought forth 
voluntarily, reflection is involved. 

If the obscuring of an idea has reached such a high degree 
that it disappears for any considerable length of time from 
consciousness, it is "forgotten." "Yet did not the chief 
butler remember Joseph, but forgot him." But there is no 
such thing as absolute forgetting, as appears from the sequel 
of the Biblical story referred to ; for as long as an idea 
remains in the soul (and it is well known that it can never 
entirely disappear from it), so long there also remains the 
possibility of the reproduction of this idea. A voluntary 
forgetting is at least very difficult; on this account, as is 
well known, the Greeks ascribed miraculous power to the 
mythical river Lethe. 

If I have seen a mirror, the frame of which is covered 
with carving, I can think of the latter as absent, and then 
an entirely simple mirror stands before my mental eye. 
The idea in this instance has been reproduced in a changed 
form. The activity of the soul, by means of which this 
change is accomplished, is called Imagination. Since in the 
above instance something has been thought away, with- 
drawn, abstracted, viz., the carving of the frame, this kind 
of imagination is called abstracting imagination. Just as 
the abstracting imagination can master objects of sense, so, 
too, can it master objects of thought. Imagination often 
abstracts the less important. It eliminates what is non- 
essential, whereby the essential is seen the more clearly. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 17 

Thus we form general concepts. But after I have seen a 
plain mirror, I can also add in thought the carving. In 
this case a new element is brought into the old idea. 
Schwab read in the newspaper the report that in Tutt- 
lingen lightning had killed four persons. By means of 
the second kind of imagination, he introduced a multitude 
of new features (the playing of the child, the spinning of 
the grandmother, the conversation, etc.), and thus rose 
his well-known poem. This kind of imaginative reproduc- 
tion is called the determinating reproduction, since it intro- 
duces closer modifications. 

In the poem "Of the Little Tree that went Walking," 
Eiickert disregards the fact that the plant is bound to its 
place and introduces the new modification of speaking ; here 
the abstracting and the determinating imagination co-operate 
and thus form the combining or constructing imagination, 
which often unites the most contradictory elements. 

It is clear that the imagination does not really create 
anything new. It only designs its work with the given 
material, the ideas. Just so is it with dreaming. This 
usually takes place in a semi-sleep, and can have a twofold 
occasion, a bodily and a mental one. The sensations, for ex- 
ample, which are created by difficulties of breathing, awaken 
similar, previously acquired ideas. And thus it happens 
that persons suffering from breathing difficulties often dream 
of climbing mountains or of other extremely fatiguing 
movements. Ideas which by day very forcibly enter into 
the foreground of consciousness by night often occasion 
dreams which sometimes grow so exciting that they cause 
us to awake. Every one who has anticipated an examina- 
tion which seemed to him difficult can confirm the above. 
Dreaming consists of a concatenation of various ideas, which 
proceeds according to the laws of reproduction. As we 
have no control over our ideas in sleep, it becomes plain 



18 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

that ideas often combine, which, in a waking condition, we 
would not permit to do so. 

It needs no special demonstration to show that in actual 
dreaming, the laws of reproduction are active mostly in a 
tangled and inextricable state; yet the correctness of the 
doctrine of psychology will not be disputed when it declares 
that the most fantastic dream develops according to definite 
laws. 

Dreaming can instruct us concerning our own thought- 
content. Moral defects often first become known to us in 
dreams. Here come thronging forth many bad and im- 
pure thoughts that we would prohibit in a waking con- 
dition. For this reason we need not fear to be imposed 
upon by one who would not even dream of committing such 
an act. 

Having hitherto discussed concrete ideas chiefly, we will 
now speak also of abstract ideas, which arise from the con- 
crete. The transition from the concrete to the abstract 
takes place for the most part involuntarily through numer- 
ous perceptions of things of a like kind. If a child has seen 
only a table with quadrangular top, he cannot conceive of 
any other table. The conception that he has is individual. 
It fits only a definite form; but if he sees a table with a 
round top, his notion of a table is already expanded, for it 
fits at least two kinds of tables. Each additional concrete 
notion of a different kind of table expands his conception of 
table in general. But the latter image is then no longer the 
image of an individual thing ; it is an abstraction which fits 
at once all the observed things, but which cannot itself be 
observed. Without knowing it, the child has gradually 
dropped all accidental qualities (quadrangular, circular, 
semi-circular, etc.) and has held fast all concordant charac- 
teristics. There has arisen an ideal image, but one which 
may become modified further in consequence of new experi- 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 19 

ences (of flower-tables, sewing-tables, etc.). Characteristics 
which before a new observation have been regarded as essen- 
tial, may after the observation be excluded as non-essential. 
The ideal image therefore remains incomplete in so far as it 
is not the result of observation of all existing varieties of 
tables. Then, too, the purposeless observation of individual 
tables does not render an accurate account as to what is con- 
cordant and what is not. 

Such an image, spontaneously arising, is called a natural 
psychic concept (natur-wiichsiger psychischer Begriff) . In 
the psychic concept we find the essentials and non-essentials 
of a thing mingled. In order to separate them completely, 
that is, in order to find the logical concept, two things are 
necessary ; first we must know, for example, all varieties of 
the table, and then the non-agreeing characteristics must 
carefully (with purpose) be excluded. If we continue our 
illustration, we find that that which otherwise in life seems 
to us to be of importance, its size, its form, the number of 
its feet, its solidity, the material of which it is made, etc., 
are of no consequence for the real essence of a table, but 
that it necessarily must have (a) a horizontal free-lying 
board or top, (b) that this must be suitably supported, 
(c) that the whole must serve the design that things may 
be laid upon it, or that something may be done upon it. 
In these three designations is contained that of which the 
nature of a table per se consists. From this illustration it 
is seen that it is not easy to define the notion of a thing 
correctly. If the definition of a notion is incomplete or 
false, and if it is nevertheless regarded as correct and further 
applied, the entire thought structure which has been erected 
upon it is false. Notions of objects of sense are more 
easily formed than notions of objects of thought, because 
the characteristics of the latter are not so easily discern- 
ible. Concepts are only the products of thought, not really 



20 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

existing things. There exist only definite oaks, definite 
beeches, definite pines, but not what would be a tree in 
general. The logical notion remains unchanged, but not 
the psychical; the latter is vacillating. The psychical 
notion differs in different persons, the logical coincides in 
all. Those notions, too, which are formed intentionally, 
remain psychical, if all the kinds of the object are not 
represented. By far the most of our notions are psychical. 
When two ideas rise into consciousness (simple or com- 
pound concrete notions, or abstract ideas), we reflect 
whether they are related to each other. Let one notion be 
" man," the other " mortal " ; we find a relation between 
these notions and express it with the words : " Man is 
mortal." We have expressed a judgment, an affirmative 
judgment. Just as there are affirmative judgments, so there 
are also negative, denying judgments. If the judgment has 
reference to one object, it is singular; if to several (some 
birds are Eaptores), it is particular; "All men are mortal," 
is a universal judgment. If I see the sky overcast by dark 
clouds, I judge that it will soon rain and I judge in this 
manner, because at other times under the same conditions 
the rain came. I am therefore conscious of the reasons 
upon which my judgment is based; such a judgment is 
called a conclusion, and in this case it is a conclusion from 
analogy. Because up to the present all men have died, I 
conclude that all men are mortal. This is a conclusion 
from the many individuals to the general. The more 
numerous the individual instances, the better the prospect, 
that the general, the conclusion, is true. 

Ideas are acquired in order that they may be utilized. To 
this end they must be able to return into consciousness 
easily. Therefore, it must be the care of the teacher to see 
that the single ideas enter into combination with each other, 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 21 

in order that the thought-complex may be easily traversed 
from any desired point 5 otherwise, though under favorable 
circumstances groups of ideas may be formed, there is no 
connection between them ; each group forms an isolated 
whole for itself, — the one knows nothing of the other, be- 
cause it is separated from it by a gulf. The willing and 
acting of a person, as an outgrowth of his ideas, are in that 
case governed by the group which at that instance is in 
his consciousness. There arise then certain phases of his 
manner of thinking and acting which continue until the 
content of the group has become exhausted; then comes 
the turn of another group, which is often an utter con- 
tradiction of the group first in control. A very striking 
illustration of this is furnished by Immermann in his 
" Munchhausen," in which he has an old captain appear, 
who has served first in the French and then in the Prussian 
army, and who is now alternately the enthusiastic supporter 
of the great Napoleon, now of the king of Prussia. He 
creates military order among his recollections and divides 
them, as it were, into two separate corps, which act indepen- 
dently. For a time he is a Frenchman, absorbed in the 
glories of the Napoleonic time, then again for. a time he is as 
decided a Prussian and eulogist of the exaltation of that 
great epoch of national uprising. 

So, likewise, it is possible that one may be orthodox to- 
day and to-morrow the most pronounced free-thinker ; that 
he should to-day defend one opinion and to-morrow with 
equal zeal maintain the opposite. Since the essence of 
character rests primarily upon a certain steadiness of voli- 
tion, which, we know, proceeds from ideas, it becomes evi- 
dent that a person with several isolated concept-masses will 
always possess an unstable character, whose desiring and 
willing cannot always be consistent. We must therefore 
assent to Herbart when he says, " The mastery over edu- 



22 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

cation is not secured until one knows how to bring into the 
youthful soul a great thought-complex, which possesses the 
power to overcome what is unfavorable in its surroundings, 
to absorb what is favorable and unite it with itself." 

These concepts which approach another (greater) con- 
cept group may stand to the several parts of the latter in a 
threefold relation ; they may be like them or similar or in- 
capable of comparison with them. As we have seen, like 
concepts coalesce into a single clearer one ; nothing new has 
therefore been added to the treasury of ideas. Concepts 
incapable of comparison maintain a mutual indifference ; 
their connection always remains an external one. Conse- 
quently we may speak of assimilation or apperception only 
with reference to similar concepts. In the process of apper- 
ception older concepts or concept-masses are often trans- 
formed. The transformation of new notions depends upon 
the character of the older ones. The latter tell us, for in- 
stance, that the earth is a sphere and revolves about the sun. 
The eye communicates to us the notion of the earth as a 
plane about which the sun revolves. Nevertheless, we do 
not believe the evidence of the eye ; the notion communi- 
cated by it is therefore transformed. The child that has 
seen only double roses, believes that being double is essen- 
tial to the rose. But this notion is transformed as soon as 
he has become acquainted with a rose that is single. Older 
notions, therefore, can be transformed in the process of 
apperception. 

The relation of perception (cognition) to apperception 
(appropriation) is characterized by Lazarus as follows : 
The soul filled with any psychic content reacts differently 
than it does without it, and thus this very special, definite, 
previously acquired content, to the degree and in the manner 
in which it is of influence upon the subsequent process, 
appears as the co-operative organ of the soul. Pure percep- 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 23 

tion by a soul having no content at all is a pale abstraction. 
Such perception scarcely exists even in the new-born babe. 
The soul as a sentient being perceives in accordance with 
its original nature, while it at the same time also apper- 
ceives in accordance with the elements acquired by previous 
activity. An apperception is not added to the finished 
perception, but the latter takes shape under the co-operation 
and essentially determining influence of the former. To 
this proposition one can surely assent, especially if one 
agrees with Lazarus in denominating as apperception the 
adoption into the thought-realm of those notions (for in- 
stance, in the recognition of a person) which find there other 
concepts identical with themselves. But this part of apper- 
ception, which together with perception forms one act, is 
very often insufficient completely to absorb the new ; very 
often there are but few and delicate threads which connect 
the new with the old in the act of perception. But the 
connection ought to be as many-sided and as strong as 
possible, and hence in very many cases there must follow 
after the act of perception a thorough " reflection," in con- 
sequence of which there takes place a new and stronger 
apperception. Frequently this requires the assistance of 
others, as, for instance, the teacher must often call up to the 
mind of the child those images which are similar to the new. 
If all the ideas by means of which in a given case the mind 
apperceives were always " standing like armored knights 
at the inner citadel of consciousness, in order to pounce 
upon everything which shows itself in the portals of the 
senses, to overpower it and force it into service," such 
assistance would not be at all necessary. But since this is 
not the case, it happens that similar concepts or concept- 
masses remain for some time in consciousness without con- 
tact, and blend only when they are reproduced simultane- 
ously. We can define the essence of apperception as that 



24 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

mutual interaction between two similar concepts or concept- 
masses, by which the one is more or less changed by the 
other and ultimately blended with it. 

It is important for the complete success of apperception, 
that consciousness concern itself exclusively with that which 
is to be appropriated and to let alone everything foreign to 
it ; to permit only such ideas to rise as have some relation 
to the new ; in short, that consciousness concentrate itself 
upon the new. This concentration, or disposition of con- 
sciousness, for the purpose of securing an accession of ideas 
we call Attention. Attention differs, according as it is ex- 
ercised without the aid of the will, or by means of it. If I 
am lost in thought and a shot is fired, all my thoughts are 
gone in a moment and I listen only to the sound of the shot, 
without specially willing to do so. If the children in my 
class are restless, and I hang a picture upon the wall, the 
restlessness will soon disappear ; the children become atten- 
tive to the picture without forming a definite resolution. 
There is accordingly an involuntary attention, which is 
based upon the strength and the newness of the sensuous 
impression; it is called primitive or original attention. If 
there is a child in the room while I read aloud in -some 
learned, scientific book, he will not listen to me ; but he 
will pay attention as soon as I take, for instance, a book of 
fairy tales, because this deals with ideas that are largely 
similar or at least related to those in his own consciousness. 
In this case the attention does not depend upon the strength 
of the sensuous impression, but upon the fact that related 
images are aroused and apperception takes place. This 
species of involuntary attention is called apperaoiving atten- 
tion. Wholly unknown ideas will not arouse our involun- 
tary attention, because there are no points of attachment 
for them in our minds ; something wholly known will per- 
haps arouse, but not hold it permanently, since no idea is 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 25 

apperceived. A happy mixture of the known and the un- 
known interests us most. For education the involuntary 
apperceiving attention is extremely important, since with 
its co-operation the new is worked up without compulsion, 
i.e., is brought into intimate relation to the present store of 
thought. 

But involuntary attention of itself alone is very often too 
weak ; the teacher must, even though the children are some- 
what interested in the subject, request them to collect their 
thoughts, so that they may not be half but entirely with the 
subject ; for example, that they may not observe the experi- 
ment in physics superficially, but in such a manner that they 
may discover at once what is to be shown. Such attention 
requires that the child collect himself, that he do not allow 
himself to be disturbed by the distracting influences of the 
external world, but that he free himself of them, that he 
concentrate his attention and control the course of his 
thoughts. This is the way to self-control ; this guards 
against flightiness and listlessness, which are the bane of 
moral life. But, nevertheless, the involuntary attention 
must assume the controlling position in the recitation, and 
never may its co-operation be dispensed with ; for the mere 
purpose of the pupil to be attentive produces no strong com- 
prehension and little cohesion of what is learned; he wavers 
constantly, and often enough gives way to weariness. From 
this follows logically the demand, that we attach all the 
new (unknown) to the known, i.e., that we make sure of the 
involuntary attention at the beginning of the recitation 
hour, not waiting with the hope that it may appear dur- 
ing progress of the recitation. 

Thus far we have spoken of concepts or ideas (Vor- 
stellungen). They are the primary states or conditions 
of the soul, and can, in turn, have their own (secon- 
dary) conditions. The latter divide into two groups, viz., 



26 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

the feelings and the desires. We will first speak of the 
feelings. 

A mother has promised to take her two children to the 
fair. Long in advance, they picture to themselves, upon 
the basis of previously acquired ideas, all the glories that 
await them. The looked-for day arrives ; they think of 
nothing else, forget eating and drinking, always busy with 
those concepts that have reference to the fair, while all 
others have sunken. Shortly before the appointed hour, one 
of the children is naughty and his mother says : " Now you 
must stay at home." There arises a severe struggle within 
the child. Those ideas that have previously been rising are 
so lively that they cannot at once sink below the threshold 
of consciousness (be forgotten), while new ideas not at all 
reconcilable with the former (prohibition), appear with full 
force. Thus the rising of concepts is arrested, and the 
result of check is a feeling of pain, which relieves itself by 
weeping. Now the sister intercedes for the offender and 
mamma says, "For this once I will let it pass; come, let me 
dress you." Now the previously arrested concepts fly up 
into consciousness, as if by a suddenly released spring, be- 
cause arrest has disappeared, and the child laughs out, while 
the tears still stand in his eyes. A feeling is therefore 
the becoming aware of an arrest or promotion of those ideas 
which at the time predominate in consciousness. Arrest 
produces a feeling of pain; promotion a feeling of pleasure. 
If feelings of pain and feelings of pleasure follow each 
other so rapidly that they cannot be kept apart, we speak of 
mixed feelings, fluctuations of feeling. 

But not all checks and promotions in the concept life 
appeal to consciousness ; most of them are too weak to ren- 
der themselves noticeable singly. All faint promotions and 
checks together form a faint total-feeling, called life or vital 
feeling, which is an obscure feeling of pleasure, because the 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 27 

promotions, if not always, yet in general, overbalance the 
arrests. 1 This vital feeling forms, as it were, the threshold, 
above which the individual feeling must rise, if it is to 
become perceivable. 

In common usage feelings are often confounded with sen- 
sations ; but they are distinguished from them in that the 
former bring into our consciousness conditions of the soul, 
the latter conditions of the body ; again, sensations are- 
primary, feelings secondary soul-states. 

We have now recognized that feeling is not a separate, 
independent faculty of the soul, but only a consequence of 
the mutual interaction of ideas. These feelings are divided 
into, (1) those whose inception depends upon the form of 
the thought movement (formal feelings) ; (2) those which 
receive their character, not from the direction of the ideas, 
but from their content (qualitative feelings). 

Let us make these two kinds clear by examples. 1. We 
wish for rain. In consequence of previous observations 
there has been formed within us the following concept 
series : (1) Oppressive heat. (2) In the distance a cloud- 
covered sky. (3) Approach of the clouds. (4) Lightning 
and thunder. (5) Eain. If now we observe the oppres- 
sive heat, we reproduce the entire series. As the first obser- 
vation corresponds to the first reproduced idea, both notions 
unite into a single one. If the next members of the series 
receive a like confirmation by observation of the occurrence 
of nature, the process will each time take place. The con- 
sequence of this is, that the foremost members of the series 
acquire force. By this means the unfolding of the older 
series is accelerated, and the pressure of its individual mem- 
bers to unite with the corresponding one of the new series 



1 Conditions of feeling are produced only when the association of 
ideas is abnormal, entirely different from the ordinary. 



28 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

grows from series to series. Reproduction, which has been 
greatly strengthened and assisted by the newly offered, 
now anticipates what is to come, and represents to us as 
already present the final member of the observation yet to 
be made. It is presupposed that the fact will also agree 
with the reproduced final member, just as, for example, the 
first two members of the observation agreed with the first 
two members of the reproduced series. But the concept 
series unfolds much more rapidly than the occurrences and 
their observation ; we have already arrived in our thought 
at the final link of the older series and of the newer obser- 
vations, while perception, on the other hand, has proceeded 
no farther perhaps than the approach of the shower. This 
throws us back upon the reproduced concept (3) again. In 
the mean time, before the observation corresponding to the 
old link (4) takes place, we have arrived with our thought 
at the final link of the observation and must again return to 
link (4). We are in the first stage of expectation, in that 
of suspense. Upon the latter follows the solution. If the 
last observation agrees with the final link in the reproduced 
series, this has no longer any obstacle to overcome. The 
concept formed by the observation unites with the repro- 
duced concept (5), and the strengthened concept rises un- 
hindered. We have the feeling of satisfaction. But if the 
clouds are suddenly dispersed before the rain has fallen, the 
concept thus unavoidably forced upon the mind comes into 
conflict with the reproduced opposing one. The feeling of 
this check is the feeling of disappointment. 

2. A person in distress applies for aid to a wealthy man, 
to whom poverty has remained entirely unknown. The 
latter is not inclined to yield to the request ; thereupon the 
suppliant pictures to him his poverty with all its unattrac- 
tiveness. But the rich man cannot put himself into the 
place of the poor man, he does not know how he feels, be- 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 29 

cause he lacks the necessary ideas; he turns him off. Next 
door lives a man who has achieved success from the most 
humble beginnings. The poor man here prefers the same 
request accompanied by the same description. This arouses 
in the mind of the rich man all those images that the op- 
pressive feeling of poverty formerly produced in himself, 
and which now disturbs the mind of the suppliant. The 
rich man puts himself into the situation of the poor man. 
He reproduces in himself the mental condition of the other. 
This condition can arise, for example, on the one hand, out 
of the ideas of the necessity of eating and drinking, of 
clothing, and on the other hand, out of the ideas which have 
reference to the impossibility of satisfying these necessities. 
This arresting of concepts the rich man feels likewise ; he 
sympathizes with the suppliant, providing he does not forci- 
bly suppress the emotion, and acts accordingly. Sympathy, 
therefore, is the copying or reproducing of a mental condi- 
tion, which results from the interaction within a concept- 
range of definite content ; it is a qualitative feeling. He 
who has not approximately those concepts which disturb 
the soul of a sufferer, cannot sympathize with him. 

As to their content, according as they have reference to 
truth, beauty, morality or religion, the qualitative feelings 
are grouped into intellectual, esthetic, moral and religious 
feelings. Sympathy belongs to the moral feelings. 

Since feeling is not a separate soul faculty, but results 
from the interaction of concepts, it follows, that every in- 
fluence upon the feeling must pass by way of the thought- 
realm. 

We have mentioned the desires as the second kind of soul 
conditions ; that these also rest upon the interaction of con- 
cepts may be seen from the following. 

A child has acquired a concept of candy. This concept is 



30 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

composed chiefly of two ideas, which are the result of sight 
and taste sensations. The child, passing the show-window 
of a confectionery shop, is attracted by the sight of the jars 
of candy there exposed; the taste concept, which was ac- 
quired simultaneously with that of sight, is reproduced by 
the latter. The taste concept is now more obscure than at 
the time of its acquisition, and it struggles constantly to 
attain greater clearness. But this desired clearness can be 
attained only by the renewed tasting of candy. There ex- 
ists an obstacle, therefore, which is in the way of the rising 
of the concept to full clearness. The longer the child re- 
mains standing before the show-window, the more rigorously 
the rising concept struggles against the obstacle, of which 
the child is conscious. The taste concept of the candy is in 
the condition of desire. The desire is the becoming con- 
scious of an effort of a concept to overcome its obstacles 
existing in consciousness. 1 The child desires the candy, in 
order to bring the concept in his mind to complete clearness. 
The real object of the desire is, therefore, not the candy, but 
the taste concept in question ; the candy is desired only as 
a means to an end, as an external means to an internal con- 
dition. To the objection, that if only concepts were de- 
sired, it were inconceivable why so many desires remain 
unsatisfied, we reply, that if objects were desired, no desire 
could be satisfied, since no object as such can enter the soul. 
" But the contradiction, that we already possess the concept 
which we yet desire, finds its solution in the fact, that we 
do not possess the concept in the manner in which we desire 
it, that we have as a mere reproduction what we desire as a 

1 Desire is distinguished from feeling in that it does not, like the 
latter, indicate a single momentary condition of thought, but a pass- 
ing through several such conditions, i.e., a movement. Single cross- 
sections of this movement are feelings. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 31 

sensation, or that we possess the concepts obscurely, which 
we desire to possess clearly." 

A hungry person desires the sensation of satisfaction by 
means of bread, and a thirsty one the quenching of thirst 
by means of water. In the case of the child above referred 
to, therefore, desire is satisfied, if the desired concept has 
come to full clearness, that is, when the rising of the concept 
in question is facilitated by the tasting of candy. A desire 
has, like a feeling, two principal stages, the suspense and 
its solution. The suspense is greatest just before the act of 
satisfying, just as the thirsty person has the strongest de- 
sire for satisfaction when he puts the cup to the lips. 

Since desire is based upon the interaction of ideas, it fol- 
lows that no one can desire a thing of which he has no idea. 
A kind of food hitherto unknown to us we can desire only 
in so far as we take for granted that it will assist in bring- 
ing into perfect clearness certain taste concepts which we 
already possess. 

But desire must not be confused with the will. Every 
act of willing is indeed a desire, but not vice versa. The 
child before the show-window has no money for the acquisi- 
tion of the candy ; neither does he know of any other way 
to gain possession of it ; it seems impossible for him to ob- 
tain it. Here the desire appears only in the form of wish. 
The state of the case may be otherwise. The child knows 
that for money candy is to be had ; money he will obtain of 
his mother for some service about the house ; in order to do 
this service, he must go home. In the child the following 
series takes form, leading up to the acquisition of the candy : 
1. To go home. 2. To perform a service. 3. To ask mother 
for a reward in money. 4. To buy the candy. While this 
causal series comes to the aid of the desire, volition springs 
from it. To will, therefore, is to desire something with the 
conviction that it may be attained. He who says, I will, 



32 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

has already in thought conquered the future thing ; he sees 
himself achieving, possessing, enjoying. Show him that he 
cannot, — and he wills no longer, as soon as he comprehends 
you. The desire may perhaps remain, and rage with im- 
petuosity, or endeavor to succeed with the utmost crafti- 
ness. In this endeavor lies again a new volition, no longer 
relating directly to the object, but to the movements that 
one makes, accompanied by the knowledge that one can 
control them, and may by means of them secure his object. 
The general desires to conquer, and therefore wills the ma- 
neuver of his troops. He would not will these, did he not 
know the force of his command. 

Whether a desire is to pass into a volition depends also 
upon the insight into the attainableness of the desired ob- 
ject. But the thing desired need not really be attainable ; 
it need only seem to us attainable, in order that the desire 
shall become a volition. The injudicious child wills where 
the adult only desires. The inexperienced youth wills far 
more than the man who has tested his powers repeatedly in 
the attainableness of the things desired. Napoleon willed 
as Emperor and desired as a prisoner at St. Helena. 



Upon our course hitherto we have met nothing which 
could argue against the correctness of the Herbartian psy- 
chology. But whatever result advancing experiment and 
study may reach, so much will always remain certain, that 
feeling and will can be determined only by the culture of 
the concept life, if a determination is at all possible. If the 
latter is not the case, there can be no pedagogy ; but if it is 
the case, then do the doctrines of the pedagogy of Herbart 
and his school hold true, even where another opinion is held 
as to the nature of the soul. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS. 33 



Queries. 

1. Does the law of the conservation of energy apply in the trans- 
mission of the nerve excitation to the soul ? How is such transmis- 
sion to be explained ? 

2. Can the original vacuity (absence of content) of the soul be 
demonstrated empirically ? Logically ? 

3. What soul-content has the child possibly acquired before birth ? 

4. About when does the acquisition of absolutely new simple ideas 
cease ? 

5. "What is the most important factor with respect to capacity ? 

6. Why is it absurd to assume capacities which are supposed to 
have their basis in the nature of the soul ? 

7. How do the notions of space and time arise ? 

8. Which phenomena are best adapted to aid in the demonstration 
of the fact that there are fixed laws in the mental life ? What proc- 
ess seems to lack conformity to law ? 

9. What significance has the narrowness of consciousness for the 
judging of the nature of the soul ? 

10. How may the arresting and promoting of ideas be made more 
clear by means of illustrations ? How may they b&- explained ? 

11. With what right may it be asserted that there are not four but- 
only two laws of reproduction ? 

12. How is it that a concept series may be reproduced forward 
better than backward ? 

13. Is there for the development of the intellect a very special point 
of beginning ? 

14. In what relation does the intellect stand to imagination ? 

15. What significance has language for apperception ? 

16. What reasons may be adduced against the distinction between 
qualitative and formal feelings ? What reasons for ? 

17. How may voluntary attention be explained as a mere condition 
of the concepts ? 

18. In what way has the assumption of mental faculties probably 
been arrived at ? 



PART II. 

ETHICAL BASIS. THE FIVE ETHICAL IDEAS. 

Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the science of good and 
evil. It gives us directions as to how we must arrange our 
conduct, and is therefore called practical philosophy. Theo- 
retical philosophy does not discuss what should be done 
or left undone. In the case of the will, for instance, it 
investigates only how it proceeds from ideas, what it is; 
to judge whether it be good or bad, whether it ought to be 
or ought not to be, belongs to the province of practical 
philosophy. 4, 

When we consider the actions of men, we find some that are 
praiseworthy and some that deserve censure ; or some good 
and some bad. Again, there are occurrences in the presence 
of which our judgment as to whether these are good or bad is 
not aroused at all. If a person in a somnambulant, therefore 
unconscious, condition commits homicide, we cannot accuse 
him of a bad action, even though the misfortune should touch 
us closely. If a woodchopper's axe unexpectedly flies from 
its helve and kills a human being near by, it does not occur 
to us to declare the man a criminal, since the accident 
has happened without (contrary to) his will. If a rich 
man throws away a pair of shoes that might still be service- 
able, and a poor man picks them up and is pleased with 
them, we do not attribute any praise to the former, because 
without his will the poor man has received a kindness. 
From these illustrations it follows that what is done without 

34 



ETHICAL BASIS. 35 

consciousness and without (contrary to) will is neither good 
nor bad, neither praiseworthy nor censurable, but in the 
ethical sense, indifferent. This does not, however, prevent 
its being personally very agreeable or very unpleasant to us. 

If an action is done with consciousness and will, it is 
subject to the ethical judgment, but this judgment is astir 
also when we merely recognize a bad or a good will. We 
disapprove when a person has the will to harm another ; 
we praise him who is willing to help an oppressed fellow- 
man. The corresponding action (so far as we are able to 
recognize the will without it) is unessential for the judg- 
ing; it is inherent in our notion of will that it pass over 
into action whenever this is possible. For a will which, 
though it might act, yet rests contented in mere desire, can- 
not strictly be called a will. The worth of the will in 
a strict sense cannot depend upon what it executes, for 
whether it acts or not does not depend upon itself merely, 
but also upon external conditions. If by the greatest efforts 
of the will, nothing were accomplished and only the good 
will should remain, it would nevertheless like a jewel 
shine for itself, as something which has intrinsic value. 
Therefore not the action but the will is the real object of 
ethical valuation. 

When Christ was tempted, though he knew and thought 
the evil, he had no pleasure in it, willed it not ; when Eve 
stood before the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she 
likewise knew and thought the evil, but she willed it also. 
Christ remains free from censure. Eve is subject to it, 
though both thought the evil. Hence it follows that think- 
ing (representing) the evil is not in itself reprehensible, 
but only the will itself. Dives in the Gospel certainly knew 
and thought the good when he saw the poor man lie before 
his door, but he did not devote himself to it, he did not 
will it. Therefore no one accounted to him this thinking 



36 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

(representing) of the good as something praiseworthy. 
Therefore not the representing of the good is praise- 
worthy, but only the will. It is only to the will and that 
which tends toward the will, as, for instance, feelings, incli- 
nations and desires, that we attach intrinsic value or the 
absence of it. These are also meant when the Bible speaks 
of the reprehensibleness of bad thoughts. 

Ordinary usage designates as good many other things 
besides the good will ; for instance, intellect and courage, 
wealth, power, honor, etc. ; but all these things can also 
exert a very bad influence, when the will which should 
make use of them is not good. For there have been many 
intelligent, courageous and mighty villains. As a result of 
our discussion we reach the famous proposition of Kant : 
" Nothing can be thought of anywhere in the world, or 
even beyond it, which without qualification can be regarded 
as good, except the good will!" 

Between good and bad there exists an irreconcilable 
opposition ; what is bad cannot at the same time be good, 
and vice versa. When a person robs a rich man, he cannot 
make this evil deed (as the expression of an evil will) good 
by bestowing the stolen money upon some needy person. 
The well-known proposition that the end sanctifies, or makes 
good, the means, though they may in themselves be bad, is 
therefore false. But though there exists this irreconcilable 
opposition between good and evil, it does not follow that a 
human being with bad traits of character can therefore have 
no good ones at all. For a person's character is of a com- 
posite nature, and permits therefore a mixture of good and 
of bad traits. But each individual trait admits of but one 
predicate. Because evil stands in opposition to good, it 
cannot be the beginning of good, nor is it a mere lack of 
good, as, for instance, cold is a lack of warmth. 

In general there are two motives that determine the 



ETHICAL BASIS. 37 

volitions of men. Jacob fed hungry Esau, because in so 
doing he had an advantage in view ; the Samaritan bound 
up and took care of him who had fallen among thieves, 
without considering any personal advantage. The former 
had a material interest in the course he entered upon, the 
latter was disinterested j the former had himself in view, 
the latter was unselfish. These examples represent the 
two kinds of will-motives. 

Let us consider volition of the first kind. Here the ques- 
tion is always: Has the willing pleasant or unpleasant, 
useful or harmful consequences for him from whom it 
proceeds ? The volition is therefore valued not for itself, 
but only for the sake of what may be secured by means 
of it; it is therefore mediate. If a will chooses only with 
reference to what is pleasant or useful, it occupies the 
standpoint of eudemonism, the doctrine of happiness, or 
well-being. It is eudemonism to do a good deed merely to 
secure thereby a feeling of satisfaction, as when one seeks 
to live in peace with his fellow-men because these pleasant 
relations react favorably upon himself. Such a volition has 
no ethical value. He also who refrains from doing evil only 
because he fears the punishment of an avenging God, and 
does the good only because he hopes to secure future 
reward, is yet far remote from true morality ; he has scarcely 
entered her outer court. Is not the good to be done for 
the sake of its intrinsic value, and does it not cease at once 
to be morally good when it emanates from other motives ? 
In fact, whatever may be gained in psychological activity 
by the mixing in of divine authority with the motives of 
ethical action, is lost again, on the other hand, in the purely 
moral value of the action. Eudemonism easily changes 
into egotism ; this happens when, in order to secure our 
own well-being, we harm others. Since in the case of 
eudemonism the desire clings to a substance (matter) as a 



38 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

determining cause (motive) of the will, i.e., to an object 
that is to secure enjoyment or well-being to him who wills, 
we may speak of materialism in an ethical sense, which is 
not to be confounded with the materialism that denies the 
existence of spirit in contradistinction to matter. 

A purely ethical volition is seen in the second example 
cited above (at least so far as we may judge this volition 
by the act). The Samaritan did not ask himself, " Shall I 
derive any profit or pleasure from my willing ? " He did 
not ask whether by means of his kindly deed anything 
might be obtained for himself, but he regarded the willing 
per se as something good, something worthy ; he did the 
good for the sake of the good. To take another example : 
A son discovers that his deceased father has harmed a 
neighbor, and restores to the latter his loss. The act of 
restitution, providing it is possible, is demanded by the 
moral law, but it becomes moral only when it is done with 
no reference to the consequences that may follow (good 
reputation, etc.). For it is not enough that what is to be 
morally good shall be done in accordance with the moral 
law, but it must also be done for the sake of the latter. 

How then may the marks of a good will be recognized ? 

It has been said, that to this end the origin of every will 
must be investigated. But a good will rises out of the 
sphere of concepts in the same manner as a bad one. A 
psychologist, to whom the difference between good and bad 
was entirely unknown, would not by the minutest analysis 
of the origin of the will discover this difference. In psy- 
chology it is just as it is in physiology with reference to 
disease and health, normal and diseased conditions of the 
body. According to physiological conception these phe- 
nomena also fall under the same physical laws, and in the 
explanation it is a matter of the utmost indifference, whether 
the conditions to be explained are normal or abnormal. 



ETHICAL BASIS. 39 

This is the so-called theoretical method of viewing things, 
largely employed, for example, in judging the personality 
of Rousseau, where it is taken into consideration that he 
lived and grew np in a corrupt society. His conduct is 
conceivable, explicable, indeed, but not for this reason justi- 
fiable. 

But even if it is thus insufficient for the ethical judging of 
a will to know how it originates, this knowledge becomes 
valuable in pedagogy where the formation of a good or a bad 
will is concerned. The teacher must know upon what fac- 
tors the formation of a good or a bad will depends, if he 
would not leave it to chance whether he employs the right 
means in education. 

Different from the physiological method, and yet belong- 
ing to the theoretical method of viewing problems, is cosmic 
or cosmological ethics. Its representatives proceed from 
the proposition that our will is a part of the universe and 
must seek its norm in the universal cosmic reason, in the 
cosmic order. To live well means, in this sense, to live so 
as to be in harmony with the universal cosmic order, i.e., 
such order as is suitable for the existence of the entire 
social order. In that case again the good is done not for 
its own sake, but because it seems expedient. But this is 
again eudemonism. 

Similar to this is that view which proceeds, not from the 
cosmic whole, but from the nature of the individual, and 
then says with Rousseau : That is good which is in accord 
with human nature. But then all acts are performed for 
the sake of human nature, i.e., because they are useful (not 
as it should be, for the sake of worthiness), and this is also 
eudemonism. 

All these tendencies value the will according to theoretic 
investigations. If this method of valuation were the cor- 
rect one, then could only he know what is good and what is 



40 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

evil who possessed an accurate insight into the nature of the 
will, of human nature, of physical laws, etc. How variously 
must then the same will be judged from these varying 
standpoints ! But there is yet another, better and more 
certain method of valuation, which does not depend upon 
theoretic knowledge. When a criminal sets a house on fire, 
our judgment does not wait for a psychological or any other 
explanation, but springs forth at once in the form of a de- 
cided displeasure, while every expression of will springing 
from the sentiment of love to our neighbor pleases at once. 

The judgment as to the worthiness or unworthiness of a 
will is here an original one. In little children this judg- 
ment does not yet appear, because they do not know the 
things that are per se base or praiseworthy. But they learn 
to know them in time through observation of good and bad 
actions, and as soon as they have risen above absolute crude- 
ness with respect to ethical deeds, when there is an incipient 
moral attitude, they pass moral judgments, providing they 
are not permanently controlled by emotions and desires 
that do not permit quiet contemplation. Upon this judg- 
ment, original and free from desire, ethics must be based. 
The ethical judgment appears next in the form of feeling, 
or to express it more exactly, of a total-impression; one 
" feels " the laudable and the base. The feeling is, however, 
often indefinite, and easily leads astray. Therefore the 
absolute valuation must rise into a logically formed and 
clearly expressed judgment. Culture and general theory of 
life may here be of great influence, especially also the appli- 
cation of knowledge of the good to human (social) relations. 

The moral judgment is developed psychologically in the 
same manner as the esthetic (the taste) : the former through 
observation of actions (as the manifestations of the will), 
the latter through observation of hues, colors, etc. This 
circumstance points to a relation of the two spheres, and 



ETHICAL BASIS. 41 

Herbart designates ethics and esthetics (in the more nar- 
row sense) as the esthetic sciences. The term Esthetics 
applies in Herbart's sense as well to the science of the 
ethically beautiful as to that of the beautiful in art, and 
their opposites. The science of the beautiful in art deals 
with form and with the relations of tones, lines, colors, etc. ; 
it is peculiar to ethics to submit to the judgment the rela- 
tions of the will. Just as a single line of color cannot by 
itself be judged as to beauty or its opposite, so also an indi- 
vidual will is not judged for itself, but only according to 
the relation in which it stands to another will. 

A will-relation involves at least two wills. These two 
wills may (a) be included in the same person, or (p) be- 
long to two different persons. In the former case we dis- 
tinguish two, in the latter three, additional kinds of will- 
relations, so that there result Jive fundamental relations and 
therefore Jive moral ideas. 

But are there really two wills in one person ? We may 
recall here, perhaps, the story of the Indian who borrowed 
some tobacco of his neighbor and found in it a gold coin. 
There arose within him a conflict between "two men," 
whether he should return the money or keep it. " It is a 
fact of inner experience, observed for thousands of years, 
that we really find in one person two wills, of which the one 
commands, and the other obeys or disobeys " (Ziller). These 
wills often enter into conflict, as the one often promises us 
enjoyment and thus lures us on, while the other warns us 
and utters commands or prohibitions. The Apostle Paul 
also describes the conflict of these wills within us, when he 
says : "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit 
lusteth against the flesh: and these are contrary the one 
to the other." In the older Greek story of Hercules at 
the Cross-Roads this soul conflict is embellished in poetic 
form. 



42 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

First Idea. 

The picture of an internal conflict is drawn for us in a 
graphic manner by Gustavus Schwab in the poem "Johan- 
nes Kant." 

The doctor of theology at Krakau on a journey to his 
Silesian home is surprised by highwaymen. Anticipating 
the demand of the robbers, he offers them his well-filled 
purse and various valuables. 

" Gav'st thou thine all ? " they bellowing say, 
" Bear'st secretly nought in boot or in belt ? " 
Death-terror swears from the Doctor : " Nay." 

When he is alone, he examines his garment and finds well 
secreted his golden savings. A joyous feeling comes over him. 

With all the gold his home is safely reached, 

He may by God's great goodness rest from fright, — 

"When sudden still he stopped, for in him cried 

With clam'rous din the dread Imperative : — 

" Lie not, lie not, Kant. Yet thou hast lied." 

At once he returns, seeks out the robbers and offers them 
the concealed sum. 

Since none will take, he penitently cried : 
u Oh, take, this have I ill denied ! " 

The law-giving will here made a demand, and the other 
will submitted to it, obeyed; it liberated itself from the 
bondage of the material advantage. Pilate acted in a totally 
different manner ; he did not heed the inner command, but 
condemned Christ ; his will was not free to follow the law- 
giving will, but was bound through fear of man. When a will 
obeys the law-giving will (discernment), it receives praise; 
when it disobeys, it suffers censure. The idea of the coin- 
cidence of our will with our law-giving will (discernment) 



ETHICAL BASIS. 43 

is called the idea of the Inner Freedom. Our moral 
(inner) freedom does not consist in the fact that we can 
also do the evil, but in the fact that we surrender uncondi- 
tionally to the law-giviug will. By inner freedom we do 
not mean self-determination of the will, but that independ- 
ence of the same from sensual desires which is connected 
with the dependence upon moral motives. The will becomes 
free when it breaks loose from the yoke of the desires, in 
order henceforth to surrender to the good and its service. 

Obedient felt I e'er my soul to be 

Most beautifully free. — Goethe, Iphigenia. 

The Conviction to which one ought to submit in obedi- 
ence must also be a worthy one; it must not be made a 
motive through any haphazard concept-group, or through 
any principle, purpose or plan, which rests upon a mere 
opinion, wish or desire. We are truly free, not when we 
merely will, but only when we will the right. In this sense 
we are to understand the words of Christ : " The truth 
shall make you free." But what is the form of the judg- 
ment, when a person has not yet become acquainted with 
the ideal ? In that case there is absolute barbarity of 
mind, utter absence of morality ; such a person lacks a 
criterion by which to measure his willing and his acting, he 
has no prototype which he should imitate. So it is in one 
period of childhood ; such is largely the condition of tribes 
of a low degree of culture ; so it is occasionally among us 
in the case of adults whose education has been totally neg- 
lected, or purposely misdirected. Such persons stand beneath 
the line of moral valuation, or to use a winged word, they 
are beneath all criticism. But how does this comport with 
childish innocence ? Innocence does not belong to moral free- 
dom, since the latter demands discernment. The child obej^s 
without judgment; but as he yields to the external will (of 



44 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

the parent), he learns also to yield to the law-giving will, as 
soon as this makes its appearance. Childish innocence is 
therefore only a point of departure from which the human be- 
ing can arrive at moral liberty when his judgment appears, 
and to which he actually attains if he follows his discernment. 
The ideal of the will can also be expressed by means of a 
law. He who assumes the ethical standpoint obeys this 
law, not merely because it is a law which may not be vio- 
lated (such conduct would be only conformable to law, 
legal ; but legality is also only a first step to inner free- 
dom), but because obedience to the law is good in itself . 

Second Idea. 

The harmony of the will with the discernment pleases. 
Eeuben, when he willed to save Joseph, submitted to the 
discernment, which his brethren refused to do ; therefore 
we must praise the former and blame the latter. Eeuben 
acted in accordance with inner freedom, and yet there rests 
a stain upon him. He had not the necessary force of will 
to oppose his brethren openly ; this want of energy of will 
we must censure. Quite differently appears the Apostle 
Paul ; he not only brings his will into conformity with 
his discernment that to the heathen the Gospel must be 
preached, but he manifests an extremely energetic, never- 
tiring will. He is " ever on the passage," he has only the 
one thought, that the word should run, and the longer 
it does so the more grows in him the will to press farther 
and ever farther forward to those who still sit in darkness. 
He climbs the snowy heights of Taurus, when drawn into 
the valleys of Lycaonia ; he wanders as far as the iEgean Sea, 
when he hears in a vision the Macedonian call : " Come 
over and help us." When he comes to Corinth, lo, ships 
are sailing for Italy ! And at once he writes to Rome, how 



ETHICAL BASIS. 45 

he is at all times praying that it might sometime be possible 
for him, with God's help, to go to the Romans. From be- 
yond the sea voices are calling to him, " Come," and in the 
hours of solitude his thoughts are occupied with "those 
that have not yet heard." This " on, on," is the real motto 
of his life. But what is in this case the nature of the will- 
relation ? The obeying or aspiring will seeks to reach the 
law-giving will in point of strength. If we indicate the 
strength of the law-giving will by 5, that of the aspiring 
will by 1, then is the latter weaker than the former; but 
when it reaches the steps 2, 3, 4 and 5, its strength is 
finally equal to that of the law-giving will. Now the law- 
giving will moves higher up to step 6, and the aspiring will 
increases in strength by 1, etc. As the law-giving will 
moves ever upward, the aspiring will can constantly in- 
crease in strength, and as the upward movement of the 
growth of the law-giving will has no end, so, too, there is no 
limit of strength for the obeying will. The will seeks to 
attain complete strength, or to become perfect. So it was 
with Paul. He acted in accordance with the idea of per- 
fection, or efficiency of will. 

This perfection of which we speak in ethics is not to be 
confused with perfection in the popular sense, as the sum 
total of all the completed virtues. 

These two ideas of Perfection and of Inner Freedom do 
not necessarily by themselves alone lead to moral volition. 
The idea of Inner Freedom demands coincidence of volition 
with judgment. But when the judgment errs in that which 
it regards as right and good, then will also the will that 
harmonizes with it take a false course; thus we see, for 
example, many barbarous tribes offering to their idols hu- 
man sacrifices, because they regard this as something praise- 
worthy. The strong will, too, maybe immoral. Both ideas 
have reference to the form of moral actions, and may 
be called formal ideas. 



46 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

We must therefore seek for additional ethical ideas, and 
tlrus we meet with the notion of volitional relations between 
two different persons. One will A can direct itself toward 
another will B, in order to imitate and strive to equal it in 
strength. But this is merely repeating again the discussion 
according to the ideas of Inner Freedom and of Perfection, 
only with this difference, that now the wills are distributed 
between two persons, whereas in the former case they were 
included in the same person. We have in the following case 
a really new will-relation : 

Third Idea. 

A wealthy man knows of the struggle of an indigent 
young man to get an education; he desires that the latter 
should secure his aim ; every successful examination fills him 
with joy, every less satisfactory one, with anxiety ; he assists 
him pecuniarily in order to bring him nearer his object, and 
rejoices at last, when he attains it. Why does the rich 
man entertain such a disposition toward his protege ? Not 
because it might bring him profit. If it really brings him 
profit (the reputation of benevolence), it is a matter of in- 
difference with respect to his disposition ; the latter would 
exist, even if there were no advantage; it would not dis- 
appear even though his benevolent action were represented 
as the result of ambition. A case of pure, disinterested 
surrender to the good of others we find especially in Pes- 
talozzi. How eager he was for the welfare of neglected 
childhood is well known. " In order to help those op- 
pressed and in trouble, no sacrifice was too great for him, 
nothing too costly, for he sought not his own advantage. 
Often he shared with the poor his last florin ; gave a beggar 
even the silver buckles off his shoes and fastened his own 
together with straw ; he went to Neufchatel to call on the 



ETHICAL BASIS. 47 

King of Prussia, in order to win him for his ideas, though 
he was very ill and fainted repeatedly on the way." He 
was, as we read on his tomb, " Everything for others, for 
himself nothing." This disinterested, unselfish surrender 
to a foreign will, with the aim to promote it, pleases un- 
conditionally. But the case may also be found reversed. 
A pupil, e.g., knows that his neighbor is striving to win the 
approval of his teacher, but he begrudges him the attain- 
ment of this aim. Every good answer excites envy within 
him, every faulty answer, joy ; he beguiles him into neglect 
of study, gives him false information and rejoices the more, 
the greater the dissatisfaction of the teacher. Such a dis- 
position, which seeks to hinder a foreign will in the attain- 
ment of its aim, or at least rejoices in case of non-success, 
displeases unconditionally. Malevolence appears in its 
ugliest form where a person feels displeasure at the at- 
tainment of an aim by another, where the former himself 
neither can, nor desires to, reach it ; where he opposes the 
attainment, not because he would attain it himself, but only 
in order that the other may not secure it. He who gives 
himself up to a foreign will unselfishly, disinterestedly, puts 
himself under the Idea of Benevolence, or Good Will. Upon 
this depends chiefly what we are accustomed to understand 
by beauty of soul. This appears in its purest form in 
Christianity. " Love one another, as Christ has loved you." 
"Love your enemies (disposition), bless them that curse 
you (expression of disposition by words, wishes), do good 
to them that hate you" (deed). 

Of great importance for the development of Benevolence 
is the culture of sympathy, which manifests itself in two 
forms, sympathy with suffering and sympathy with joy. It 
is not less important for Benevolence than childish Inno- 
cence for Inner Freedom. Sympathy is developed only in 
the more narrow circles, and thus do these become a school 



48 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

of Benevolence. In the family, in the home, in social inter- 
course, etc., Benevolence must be learned, and thence it may 
be extended to wider circles. Because sympathy is so im- 
portant for the dawning life and the success of Benevolence, 
we must cultivate tender feelings in children, even toward 
objects without soul or will, as plants and animals. Plants 
may not carelessly be allowed to wither or be recklessly de- 
stroyed; animals may not be needlessly tortured, notwith- 
standing the fact, that they must be content to serve the 
necessary requirements of man. In the interests of Benev- 
olence must children early learn carefully to tend and to 
nourish both plants and animals. Whoever is in this re- 
spect neglected and hence indifferent will prove also slack 
and indifferent where Benevolence is concerned. 

Fourth Idea. 

When two wills come forth from themselves, they direct 
their attention to the external world, which is their common 
sphere of action. Every human being has needs, which he 
satisfies with the objects of the external world, and it may 
happen that two wills casually direct themselves toward the 
same object, desiring it at the same time. 

The shepherds of Abraham and of Lot dwelt peaceably 
together so long as the pasture was sufficient for their 
flocks. When this was no longer the case, the wills 
of both parties directed themselves to the same pastures, 
and there resulted a strife. Abraham, by means of his 
power, could have dislodged Lot, but the strife would not 
have been removed by this procedure, for Lot would have 
continued to oppose secretly. This strife of wills dis- 
pleases. It was necessary therefore to have conference and 
agreement, in order that the strife might cease. Abraham 
allowed Lot to choose a definite district, to which in the 



ETHICAL BASIS. 49 

future lie was to confine himself, but in which he was also 
not to be molested. The content of the agreement therefore 
was to be established as a norm or rule for the future con- 
duct of both wills. If the one or the other had failed to 
respect the established norm, if the one or the other had 
driven his flocks beyond the established limits, the strife 
would have broken out afresh. We are not informed that 
this did take place : each confined himself within the estab- 
lished limits, each submitted to the Idea of Rights. 

"Right (legal) is the concordance of several wills, re- 
garded as a rule for the prevention of strife " (Herbart) . 

Strife and malevolence differ from each other in the 
following particulars : In malevolence one will seek to do 
harm to another; it hates, injures and harms without any 
cause; in strife one will would perhaps not concern itself 
about the other, were it not for the sake of some object, in 
the possession of which the other endeavors to thwart him. 

Fifth Idea. 

When Christ had healed the ten lepers, one returned in 
order to express his gratitude for the benefit received, but 
the other nine accepted the benefit without showing them- 
selves appreciative. The former excites our approval, the 
latter our censure. The will of Christ had transferred upon 
the will of the leper a good ; this good returned again in 
the form of thanks upon the originator. The will of Christ 
had transferred a good also upon the wills of the others, but 
as this will did not return in the form of gratitude upon the 
originator, there was created an incongruence. Upon one 
side there was produced an excess of good. If one will trans- 
fers upon another will an ill (harms another, e.g., the honor 
of another), our displeasure is also aroused, and this dis- 
pleasure does not vanish until an excess of ill has returned 



50 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

upon the originator (until lie has been punished). When 
one person consciously renders to another a good or an ill, 
it is fitting that the good or ill should in like measure re- 
tarn upon the will that has caused the incongruence. This 
will shall be rewarded or punished; thus demands the Idea 
of Justice, or Equity. 

While, as already remarked, the ideas of Inner Freedom 
and of Perfection are merely formal, we must assign to the 
ideas of Benevolence, of Eight and of Justice the attribute 
" Substantial." To be more exact : There are three universal 
virtues : Love, the sense of Right and the sense of Justice. 
The Idea of Perfection indicates the measure of strength of 
each of the three dispositions, or virtues. The Idea of Inner 
Freedom is altogether the first presupposition of these 
virtues. 

The five elementary ideas in their application to larger 
combinations and associations produce the derived ideas. 
Jurisprudence develops from the idea of the ethically right 
civil law; from the idea of Justice, criminal law. In ac- 
cordance with the idea of Benevolence every member of any 
considerable community must, for the welfare of all members 
of the same, do his utmost to contribute to the production 
and proper administration of property (system of economics). 
The idea of Perfection demands, that every one contribute 
his share to the advancement of general culture (system 
of civilization) . Inner Freedom demands of every member 
of society that he subordinate his personal will to the total 
will. If the latter is governed by moral ideas, then is this 
demand a thoroughly moral one and leads to the idea of 
animated society. 

In the application of these ideas to human life there arises 
another series of ethical notions : virtue, duty, ethical good. 
Virtue is the perfect concordance of the character with all 
the ethical ideas. What is further designated by the word 



ETHICAL BASIS. 51 

virtue, consists only of manifestations of this one virtue. 
If a will is not yet of itself in accord with the ethical ideas, 
but must first be bound to them, there arise from this rela- 
tion the notions of duty and of law. For an absolutely holy 
will there is neither law nor duty. The ethical good is the 
perfected organism of society, animated by these ideas, and 
called in the Bible : " The Kingdom of Heaven." 

The ethical ideas comprise the entire field of that which 
man ought to do and to leave undone. All the virtues and 
vices are illumined by them. Let us glance, for example, 
at lying in the light of the practical ideas. Lying is a 
transgression in the first place against the idea of Inner 
Freedom, which demands concord of disposition, on the one 
hand, and word and deed on the other; the liar thinks other- 
wise than he speaks. Lying displeases no less from the 
standpoint of the idea of Perfection, for most men lie 
because they have not courage enough, not strength of will 
enough, to tell the truth and to stand by the consequences. 
Lying is further not in harmony with the idea of Benevo- 
lence ; for to lie to another, to lead him astray, is evidence 
of lack of love, maliciousness, malevolence. Lying is a 
very fruitful source of strife, for in lying there is a merely 
illusory yielding. The liar appears as if he were ready to 
yield to the truth, but presently he withdraws this yielding 
secretly and offers instead untruth. This withdrawing of 
what the other rightly expected, viz., the truth, becomes, 
as soon as he discovers it, the occasion of strife. In lying, 
there is also a lack of equity ; for the confidence with which 
one is met ought to be repaid by a corresponding counter- 
gift, viz., by truthfulness ; not to repay the received good 
(confidence) by an ill (deception). The social (derived) 
ideas are also perceptibly affected by the falsehood. 

It has been largely asserted that ethics is not an indepen- 
dent science at all ; that it is rooted and grounded in the 



52 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

science of religion. This view must be most emphatically 
denied. The relation between religion and morality, how- 
ever, is different. One cannot fail to recognize that religion 
has the greatest significance for the germination and growth 
of moral character. He who does right only from a con- 
sideration of God and the future life, is still very remote 
from true morality, it is true ; but he accustoms himself to 
resist the impulses of the moment, to reflect and to give 
heed to ideal demands ; he can in time reach a point where 
he obeys the demands out of respect for their worthiness 
alone. It may in this connection be very well that in 
reality he already obeys the nobler motives, while he still 
believes he is obeying the commands of an almighty God. 
Just as for the child obedience, resting on the authority of 
the teacher and the child's love for him, is a necessary pre- 
liminary step toward genuine morality, so, too, the human 
race as a whole is led to true morality only as the commands 
of the ideas are regarded as the commands of a law-giver 
at first feared beyond everything, later also loved beyond 
everything. With occasional exceptions the way to morality 
passes only through legality. 

But even though man has reached a higher stage of moral 
development, he may not dispense with the support of 
religion. He ought to will the good, but a volition becomes 
possible only when success hovers in sight; without the 
hypothesis of ^success, there is no energetic, resolute acting 
possible ; fear of failure paralyzes energy. Now, there are 
often circumstances in the presence of which we should 
despair of all success of our good endeavor. And yet we 
ought to be energetic ! This is possible only in case we 
believe in the co-operation of the highest Being, whose pur- 
poses and designs are so arranged that ultimately the good 
within us as in society will dominate. Without religion, 
without any fixed faith in Providence, were it only the 



ETHICAL BASIS. 58 

indefinite faith in a world government, no self-conscious 
morality is conceivable. Other points in which religion is 
of significance for morality, as, for instance, redemption, may 
be omitted at this place. 

Queries. 

1. What arguments may be adduced for and against a distinction 
between theoretical and practical philosophy ? 

2. What is the significance, in a religious point of view, of regard- 
ing the will alone as object of moral valuation ? 

3. Is not taste too fluctuating to permit of founding upon it a system 
of scientific ethics ? 

4. Do the moral ideas appear as controlling powers in the life of 
barbaric tribes ? 

5. With what arguments can the independence of the idea of Inner 
Freedom be assailed or established ? 

6. Do the five ethical ideas really comprise all that man ought to 
do and to leave undone ? 

7. What is the relation between religion and morality, between 
virtue and religiousness ? 

8. How does the New Testament doctrine of reward comport with 
the doctrine of disinterested valuation? 

9. Why is a moral aim on the basis of Pantheism logically 
impossible ? 



PART III. 
PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 

The will, which constitutes the worth or worthlessness of 
a human being, proceeds from the realm of ideas. It results 
from the concept life and is influenced by it. An important 
task of education therefore is the care of the mental, or con- 
cept, life. Ideas arise in the pupil even without any pur- 
posed influence of the teacher. With a thousand charms the 
sensuous world pours in upon the child. He learns to know 
household implements, objects of field and garden, wind and 
weather, cold and heat ; he sees the operations of the farmer, 
of the mechanic, of the merchant. To all these things he 
stands in the relation of an observer ; they are objects of 
his experience furnishing him with knowledge. 

But the child plays not only the rdle of a mere observer ; 
he enters into a definite relation 'with his brothers and 
sisters, his playmates; he is sad with them, rejoices with 
them; he also places himself in a similar relation to inan- 
imate beings, by imagining them to be animate ; the little 
girl weeps over the sick doll, and comforts the broken 
flower. We say the child cultivates intercourse with ani- 
mate beings, real or imaginary. From social intercourse, 
there arises sympathy with other, especially human, beings. 
From sympathy, from interest, are evolved dispositions 
toward men. 

Experience and social intercourse, these two great school- 
masters of the human race, show themselves effective even 

54 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 55 

without the teacher ; they beget knowledge and disposition. 
Is not in this respect the teacher superfluous ? We answer 
this question in the first place with regard to experience. 
The child of a great city acquires experiences almost exclu- 
sively in this city ; he seldom visits the country. The 
range of his knowledge must therefore be very narrow 
when he is restricted to the experience that offers itself of 
its own accord. But would that children had even as much 
experience as they have opportunity of acquiring ! They 
have eyes and see not, they have ears and hear not. Of 
three hundred six-year-old primary pupils in the country, 8 
per cent had seen no grain field, 14 per cent no pond, 30 per 
cent no lark, 43 per cent no oak, 14 per cent had not been 
in the woods, 18 per cent had not been near a brook or a 
river, 26 per cent had not been upon any mountain, 37 per 
cent could not tell how bread is made from grain. How 
slowly would experience advance, if education did not come 
to its assistance ! How fragmentary and crude would be 
the knowledge acquired without the mediation of education ! 
There would be error, fanaticism and all kinds of extrava- 
gances to fear ; therefore education must direct experience, 
guide it into the right channel, complete it and shorten its 
course. 

But social intercourse must not fall under the dominion 
of chance. What can be the future of a child that perhaps 
does not know his father or is a daily witness of most re- 
pulsive and disagreeable family scenes, and spends the 
greater part of his childhood upon the street ! In such 
a case dispositions toward men are also formed, alas, not 
always desirable ones. How scant are often the results of 
intercourse with others even under better circumstances ! 
How small and narrow the conditions of ordinary life in 
which man grows up ! Therefore family and social inter- 
course also requires the aid of education. 



56 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

Experience and intercourse are not to be displaced, but 
supplemented by education. " Who would miss/' says Her- 
bart, " experience and intercourse in education ? It is as if 
one were to dispense with the sun and be content with 
candle-light." 

How does education act as a complement to experience ? 
The teacher takes walks, makes excursions, journeys with 
his pupils, visits museums and collections of natural history ; 
he experiments, shows them copies (pictures, models) of ob- 
jects and gives them a picture of that which cannot immedi- 
ately be observed through description and graphic story. 
Instruction, tradition, presentation, have the advantage of 
completeness and intelligibility, but this method lacks sen- 
suous force; observation possesses the latter, but it is more 
or less fragmentary and confused. Therefore it is necessary 
to vivify instruction by means of a sensuous vigor of obser- 
vation, and, on the other hand, to make observation an 
organic whole of knowledge by means of supplementing, 
systematizing instruction. 

How does education supplement intercourse ? Inter- 
course is cultivated with animate beings, or objects imagined 
as animate, especially with human beings. The teacher 
brings the child into relation with his fellow-pupils and 
with adults. But this intercourse is on the one hand too 
narrow, on the other hand it does not always awaken the 
interest sustained by the true spirit of charity. We must 
therefore add another kind of intercourse, namely, with 
men that live remote from him, or have lived before him, 
or exist only in poetry. Is such an intercourse possible ? 
Intercourse does not cling to the clod, but upon the wings 
of imagination it hastens to meet with absent, historic or 
poetic characters. In a garret, secluded from all the world, 
with book in hand, we can move in great and select society. 
The student Luther cultivated the society of Samuel, who 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 57 

said : Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Bogumil Goltz 
tells in his "Buch der Kindheit" about his intercourse with 
Eobinson Crusoe. The boy forms intimate friendships 
with the heroes of old. His fist clinches when he sees his 
friend suffer under the oppression of an untoward fate, and 
again he rejoices when he sees him come forth crowned 
from all suffering endured. 

That part of education w r hich supplements intercourse and 
experience is called instruction. If it must be admitted on 
the one hand that immediate experience and immediate inter- 
course act more powerfully than such an experience and such 
an intercourse as instruction usually finds it possible to sup- 
ply, it cannot, on the other hand, be denied, how much more 
pleasing places are often pictured in descriptions and draw r - 
ings, than they are in reality; how much more satisfying and 
inspiring intercourse with the world's historic men is than 
that with our neighbors ; how much richer of comprehension 
the concept is than the observation, how indispensable for 
practice the contrast is between the real and that which 
ought to be. Since it is the purpose of instruction to sup- 
plement experience and intercourse, it must be regarded as 
a part of education ; its position is beside not within educa- 
tion. We must agree with Herbart when he says : " I 
confess to have no conception of education without instruc- 
tion, just as, on the other hand, I recognize no instruction 
which does not morally educate." A distinction is, how- 
ever, to be made between the customary view of instruction 
as a means of education and that of Herbart and his school. 
" Of morally educative instruction," says the former in his 
Letters, " have I first begun to speak, I believe. You will 
recollect that we emphasized that very thing most ; instruc- 
tion is too much regarded as of only secondary importance ; 
it is conceded that its effect is most enduring, because 
acquired knowledge remains, while customs and manners 



58 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

change. The expression educative instruction was after- 
wards taken out of my mouth and used much against my 
own intention. According to the conventional view, the 
educative effect ^of instruction consists in the fact, that it 
stirs up the powers dwelling in the pupil, strengthens them 
by practice and directs them. In this sense of course every 
kind of instruction is a kind of education, nor can it be 
denied that the success of instruction is conditioned upon 
the vividness, heartiness and conscientiousness of the 
instructor." According to Herbart, the principal care of 
the teacher, in addition to what is expected in the way of 
conventional practice, is to see that the content of thought 
is correctly built up from the material at hand, and closely 
connected even in its remotest parts, in order that the for- 
mation of character shall appear to be properly regarded. 

Character forming is will forming. The will springs from 
the thought-complex, which instruction has to form. The 
educative value of instruction then consists in the influence 
which it shows with respect to the will. Not every kind 
of instruction produces a thought-complex from which ener- 
getic volition results. Frederick the Great had enjoyed a 
very extensive religious education, yet he manifested but 
slight religious endeavor. How came this ? The perverted 
method of instruction created no interest. Interest, there- 
fore, must be the product of education. The word interest 
is used in a twofold sense. It is demanded of instruction 
that it be interesting, in order that the pupil may the more 
easily acquire the facts of knowledge. In this view the 
object is the appropriation of the facts of knowledge, the 
means, the exciting of an interest for this material. This 
is receptive interest. But this receptive interest does not 
yet assure us that out of the mediated thought-complex will 
spring an energetic volition ; the facts of knowledge, after 
they have been received, may yet remain dead and unutil- 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 59 

ized. We must therefore cast about for the second kind of 
interest, the kind that Herbart emphasized. An illustra- 
tion may serve to elucidate its nature. A boy hears with 
special attention the teacher's stories of navigators. He 
likes to think of them also out of school hours and would 
like to know more of them. For this purpose he asks the 
teacher for books and is all attention when he hears any 
remarks touching his favorite theme. The boy has an 
investigating interest. This leads him to the desire to be- 
come a seaman, and afterward, when this object seems to 
him to become attainable, a volition will easily be developed 
from this desire. The investigating interest is, as it were, 
the root of the desire and of the volition. This view of 
interest is peculiar to the Herbartian philosophy, and in the 
German language has no adequate expression. 1 The word 
expresses in general that kind of intellectual activity which 
education should induce, not being coutent with mere 
knowing. 

Knowledge is regarded as a supply that might be absent 
without in any way changing the person. He, on the con- 
trary, who holds fast to acquired knowledge and seeks to 
extend it is interested in it. Though interest accompanies 
instruction to a degree, it is nevertheless essentially a con- 
sequence of instruction. The interest that education has 
to generate, and that must, up to a certain degree, accom- 
pany instruction must be immediate, i.e., the pupil must 
not learn merely for the sake of securing first rank, a good 
grade, a brilliant position in life. Immediate interest works 
from pure, disinterested devotion to the thing, and finds the 
reward in itself ; it knows nothing of the motives of selfish 

1 And we may add, the same difficulty presents itself in English ; 
the expressions, to be partial to, to have a fancy for, to have a taste 
for, to take an interest in, approach it somewhat in meaning, but 
cannot completely express it. — Tr. 



60 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

speculation, of fear, of ambition. For this reason the 
teacher must, during instruction, avoid everything that might 
favor the production of mediate, and hinder the production 
of immediate interest. 

But immediate interest must be defined more closely. 
Let us assume that a person has developed a lively interest 
in commercial pursuits. He must then be on his guard; 
lest he become biased in the pursuit of this one interest ; 
lest his entire thought-complex revolve exclusively about 
his business ; lest he forget his moral and religious duties ; 
lest he neglect even the education of his children — all for 
the sake of his business. " Such a biased, limited interest 
instruction must seek to prevent by exciting a many-sided 
interest, which does the one thing and leaves not the other 
undone. In the many-sidedness of interest the pupil is by- 
and-by to find moral anchorage and protection against that 
bondage which springs from the desires and passions; it 
shall guard him against all those errors that are the conse- 
quences of idleness ; it shall arm him against the vicissi- 
tudes of fortune; it shall reconcile him with life again, 
even when a sad fate has robbed him of his dearest; it 
shall let him find a new vocation, when he has been 
crowded out of the old one; it shall elevate him to that 
point of view from which all earthly possessions and all 
earthly endeavor appear as something incidental, by which 
our real self is not touched, and above which the moral 
character stands sustained and free. 

Many-sided interest is divided into the interest of knowl- 
edge and the interest of sympathy. 

Knowledge derived from the sphere of experience may 
direct itself first toward the much, the many-colored and the 
manifold, and the mind may take pleasure in the variety and 
novelty of impressions. The excitation and eager continu- 
ance of endeavor in this direction is called empirical interest. 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 61 

The element of the obscure and enigmatical, as it is met 
in the facts of history, urges from a mere observing, as it 
predominates in the empirical interest, to reflection con- 
cerning causal connections ; in order to understand facts 
and events one seeks to become clear concerning their 
causes and conditions. An effort of this kind presup- 
poses a mental activity to which Herbart gave the dis- 
tinguishing name of speculative interest. He who at the 
sight of the starry heavens rejoices over the millions of 
stars in their various constellations, manifests an empirical 
interest ; he who ponders over the conditions of their com- 
ing into being has a speculative interest. 

Observation is reinforced by the taste. The interest that 
has reference neither to quantity nor to the causal connec- 
tion, but to the relations of what is observed, whether this 
lie in the world of sense or in the thought world, is called 
esthetic interest. When reference is had to the esthetic 
interest, the sense of the beautiful in nature, in art and in 
morals is meant. 

In matters of sympathy from the sphere of intercourse, 
the feelings of others are imitated within ourselves. There 
arises gradually the diversity of feeling, in which the good 
and the ill, the joy and the grief of others, are repeated in 
ourselves. We then speak of the sympathetic interest. If 
to this feeling is joined the understanding of the larger rela- 
tions of society, if one participates in that which appears to 
many a good or an ill, there arises the public spirit for the 
prosperity of human relations, which Herbart has called, 
in brief, social interest. When, finally, sympathy follows the 
trend of history and the fortunes of the human race in toto, 
when the reason as well as the sensibility perceives that the 
control of the history of the human race withdraws itself 
from all human forces, and that for this reason also the 
history of every individual lies not in his own power — then 



62 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

do fear and hope join with sympathy in the heart. This is 
religious interest. 

A yet closer definition of interest is necessary. Jnst as 
one-side dness is to be avoided, so mnst care be exercised that 
the various phases of interest receive a uniform develop- 
ment;, so that one interest shall not overbalance another, 
and, as it were, a one-sidedness arise in the midst of variety. 
Many-sided interest must be well-balanced, symmetrical. 

Interest is the lamp by which Herbart once for all has 
brought the clearness of day into the dark and labyrinthine 
passages of didactics ; it is the magic word which alone 
gives to instruction the power to evoke the spirit of youth, 
and to render it obedient to the call of the master ; it is 
the long lever-arm of education, which, easily and joyfully 
moved by the teacher, can alone bring the youthful volition 
into the desired motion and direction. 

How does interest arise ? An exhaustive answer to this 
question is not possible in this place ; we must therefore 
be content with a few suggestions. We have already seen 
that the fusion of new concepts with older ones, when it 
takes place with ease and certainty, produces a pleasurable 
feeling, by means of which is induced a desire to repeat the 
same t inner activity, a wish to continue to busy oneself with 
the same object. It will be seen from this that interest is 
most intimately connected with apperception. The ease, 
the pleasure and the wish or need convert the activity of 
apperception coming from within, into what we have called 
interest. He who watches over apperception cares also for 
interest. Therefore he who would arouse interest, must so 
act that (a) the new may find within the pupil apperceiv- 
ing concept-groups ; and that (b) the process of appercep- 
tion may take place with ease and respond to an inner need. 

Every teacher knows that there are materials remote 
from the children, which in general exceed their receptive 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 68 

powers. Materials of this kind find too few apperceiving 
concept-groups, are therefore unable to arouse any interest, 
and hence are to be excluded from instruction in the school- 
room. The teacher cannot use all material ; he must select 
not only the useful, but from all that is fit for use, the 
fittest, the best. 

Yet it is not enough merely to make a proper selection. 
The Declaration of Independence, for instance, is without 
doubt useful for the school-room in general, but not for 
children of the first school year, because at this stage the 
necessary apperceiving concepts are not yet in existence. 
Hence it appears, that to the selection of subject-matter 
must be added its arrangement (distribution over the school 
period). 

But even the best of material, notwithstanding the best 
arrangement, leaves the pupil cold, void of interest, when 
the methodical (teaching) treatment is wrong. 

First, then, we must speak of the selection of subject- 
matter. 

To teaching belongs the task of supplementing experience 
and intercourse. From experience there comes a knowledge 
of external nature (the world) ; from intercourse arise dis- 
positions toward men. To supplement experience, we re- 
quire the materials of natural science (in the widest sense). 1 
To supplement intercourse, we require instruction that trains 

1 To the real or imagined intercourse with men must be added also 
the intercourse with God, whom even the Bible represents as the friend 
of men. — Ziller. And Herbart: Education is to supplement expe- 
rience and intercourse. There exists nothing except nature, man and 
the link which connects these two, Providence. When education has 
expanded experience into acquaintance with nature, and has elevated 
intercourse into an appropriation of a universal interest in humanity, 
when it has united both with religion, then, and not till then, has it 
fulfilled its pedagogical purpose. Dorfeld distinguishes three prin- 
cipal trends of knowledge : Nature, human life (in the past and in the 
present) and religion. 



64 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

disposition (culture studies). Disposition has reference 
chiefly to men (sometimes also in a general way to every- 
thing animate or regarded as animate). The sphere of the 
human belongs to history and literature, as the story of real 
or merely imagined events. Natural science and history 
(both taken in their widest sense) indicate therefore the two 
main trends from which the materials of instruction are to 
be derived. Since the moral worth of man lies in his dis- 
position, it follows that culture (historical) study deserves 
the preponderance. If only to counteract the influence of 
egotism, human relations must be made the central study in 
every school which assumes the culture of the whole man. 

Let us therefore next see what materials are to be chosen 
from the field of history. 

Only such historical matter may be admitted as, with 
proper treatment, must awaken interest in every pupil. 
But the psychological prerequisite for all concepts that are 
to enter into the mind as interesting, is similarity, or 
relationship with pre-existing concepts, the condition of 
being expected by the latter; in short, the most careful 
regard to every individuality, and to the ever-changing 
stage of apperception in each case. The material must 
therefore be so chosen that it may be as much as possible 
in accordance with the stages of apperception. But since 
(according to Ziller) every human being as an individual 
must pass through the same stages of development as the 
human race in toto, it follows that the best materials will 
be those that represent the principal stages of development 
of the human race. Of such stages (called culture-histori- 
cal epochs) Ziller recognized eight and prescribes for them 
the following materials : — 

1. The Epic Fairy Tale. 

2. The Story of Eobinson Crusoe. 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 65 

3. The History of the Patriarchs. 

4. The Period of Judges in Israel. 

5. The Period of Kings in Israel. 

6. The Life of Jesus. 

7. The Acts of the Apostles. 

8. The History of the Reformation. 

With this choice of materials is also given their sequence. 
The excellence of these materials can only be shown after 
we have first spoken of the second main trend of instruc- 
tion, natural science. 

Let it be remembered that education is in the service of 
character forming, and that the formation of character can 
appear assured only where a unified thought-complex is 
produced; one which coheres intimately in all its parts. 
But if a unified thought-complex is to be produced, we 
must not have, beside the historical instruction, entirely 
independent instruction in natural science ; the formation 
of two separate thought-circles, separated from each other 
by a gulf, must not be permitted. If we would obviate this 
evil, we have no other way than to bring these two chief 
groups of material into the closest possible relation to each 
other ; whence it follows that one group of material must 
adapt itself more or less to the other. It has already been 
stated above, that the dominating position belongs to the 
historical (culture) material. The natural science matter 
must therefore adapt itself to the former. Whence it fol- 
lows, that the choice and sequence of the latter are also 
largely determined by the culture study. 1 

Culture study and natural science study have the common 

1 The Stoy school of Herbartians reject Ziller's subordination of 
science to culture studies, seeking rather the co-ordination of the two 
groups. For an exposition of this, see the Editor's Herbart and the 
Herbartians. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894. — Ed. 



66 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

name of content study (Sachunterricht). Objects are named 
by means of language. If the pupil is to manipulate 
language, that is, learn to speak, read and write, language 
must be made a special subject for study. The teaching 
of language also has to do with objects. In order to 
secure unity of the thought-complex the study of language 
must also be brought into relation with the culture studies. 
In singing, a like union must take place. In drawing, 
objects are represented in outline; arithmetic has to do 
with the quantity and number of objects. Therefore these 
branches must also be brought into relation with culture 
studies, if we would secure an intimate connection of ideas. 
Culture study is therefore the center of education in gen- 
eral. Inasmuch as, with Ziller, character-forming instruction 
makes use chiefly of those materials which represent the cul- 
ture-historical stages above named, these form the central 
material for the entire education of youth. 

With reference to this Ziller says : " For every grade 
of instruction aud every kind of school there must be es- 
tablished a unity of thought. On account of the moral- 
religious purpose of education, we must provide a character- 
forming material, designed to serve as a nucleus, around 
which everything else may be ranged peripherically and 
from which connecting threads may extend in all directions, 
whereby all parts of the child's thought circle may be con- 
stantly unified and held together. In this manner education 
ceases to be an aggregate of separate branches of instruction, 
which otherwise is unavoidable. The selection and progress 
of the central studies are to be so adjusted that they repre- 
sent partly the growth and development of the child's mind, 
and especially the grades of apperception which must suc- 
ceed one another according to psychological laws; partly 
also his progress corresponding to the development of the 
individual in the great whole in the evolution of the history 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 67 

of the human race, so far as this is known to us through 
classical 1 literature accessible to youth, in all its principal 
periods, demonstrably important for our present stage of 
culture. 

These materials, couched in classical form, have already 
been named. Let us now proceed to consider them in detail. 

In the above-mentioned series it is at once apparent that 
the first two grades are not taken from religious material, 
although in general the aim is evident to make religious 
instruction the nucleus of the entire education of youth. In 
the first two school years the life of Jesus is made interest- 
ing to the little ones, not so much as a subject of instruc- 
tion, as an entertaining narrative in connection with the 
ehurch feasts in special children's services. Ziller and his 
adherents have come to the conclusion, that, aside from 
the culture-historical epochs, a fruitful treatment of Bible 
history during the first two years is not practicable on 
account of difficulties which lie chiefly in the remote 
time, with its social forms, institutions, manners, customs, 
laws, etc., and in the strange arena of this history, without 
the knowledge of which history hangs in the air, a picture 
consisting of figures without any background. The thought- 
complex of the pupil's home from which his imagination 
must borrow colors and typical pictures for the distant 
and the strange, for the remote and the past, must first be 
sufficiently fortified, before he may be conducted to the 
earliest development of culture, in a country so remarkable 
as Canaan. The difficulties of Bible language might, it is 
true, be removed by a simplification of the text after the 
manner of Wiedemann, but to such a profanation the school 
of Herbart and Ziller cannot consent ; they are of the opinion 

1 Periods which no master has described, whose spirit no poet 
breathes, are of little value to education. — Herbart. 



68 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

that the Bible character of those stories must be retained. 
All their deliberations lead to this result : "Our Bible stories 
cannot become fully and completely effective in the mind of 
the child, until the soil has been properly prepared for them 
during the first two years. We therefore defer the treat- 
ment of Bible stories as a study until the third year, when 
we hope to reap more satisfactory results than have hitherto 
been secured." 

The first central material therefore does not belong to 
Bible history, nor to any history proper, but is historic only 
in the sense that it contains stories that treat of beings that 
are animate or conceived to be animate. Besides, it does 
not consist of so-called moral stories, which are for the most 
part so asthmatic, that they are obliged to stop every few 
moments to rest upon commonplace moralizing. 

The central material for the first school year consists of 
a selection of Grimm's Fairy Tales. These best meet the 
requirements that must be made of a genuine juvenile story 
(for the above-mentioned grade). They are truly child- 
like, that is, simple without being trivial and at the same 
time full of imagination ; the} 7 are morally formative in the 
sense that they contain characters and relations, which, 
simple and full of life, challenge the ethical judgment to 
approve or disapprove ; they are instructive, for they offer 
occasions for appropriate discussions concerning nature 
and society ; they are of enduring value ; they invite to a 
constant return ; they form a unit and thus make a deep 
impression, and they are the sources of a possible many- 
sided interest. 

Professor Ziller, in the first " Jahrbuch Des Vereins fur 
Wissenschaftliche Padagogik," has laid down the value of 
the fairy-tale material in a manner which, in point of thor- 
oughness, far excels all attempts that have been hitherto 
made. Following is a brief synopsis of his chief points : — 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 69 

Fairy tales are adapted, as is nothing else, to the individ- 
uality of the child, and especially to the predominating 
faculty of imagination, which is by all means to be culti- 
vated, since in this are rooted all the higher strivings. For 
this reason the concept matter must be poetic. Only poetic 
thought material allows the imagination free play, especially 
the fairy-tale material, which contains no names of persons 
or places, whose events are defined precisely neither as to 
space nor time. The child who becomes absorbed in fairy 
tales remains longer a child; he contemplates them with 
delight; he believes in them; for he himself rises, as do the 
fairy tales, above the conditions of reality ; he vivifies the 
lifeless ; he animates the soulless ; he associates with all 
the world as with his equals, and loses himself in adventur- 
ous, impossibilities. Thus to favor the child-like views of 
things by means of, to him, congenial fairy tales cannot re- 
act harmfully upon him, because the fairy tale contains, 
besides that subjective conception which deviates from the 
nature of things, also an abundance of objective, rational, 
not only esthetic but also ethical, notions and principles, 
which lead far beyond the sphere of imagination. They 
serve especially to exercise the ethical judgment, and, be- 
cause the circle of acquaintance is extended to include 
inanimate things, the child finds a rich field unlocked, 
where, on account of the simplicity and correctness of the 
cases, it learns to decide easily, rapidly and correctly. 

A large number of other objective notions also, which re- 
late to the natural conditions of events, are found in fairy 
tales, and instruction will treat them, too, in a strictly 
rational manner, so that, notwithstanding the child's utter 
abandonment to the fairy tale, the harmful effect that was 
feared does not take place. For in the child's conscious- 
ness, whose parts at first fuse but very slightly, the wonder- 
ful fairy-tale content forms an isolated circle, complete in 



70 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

itself, and, instead of hurrying their fusion, the contrast 
between the supernatural fairy-tale products and the present 
reality should be allowed to stand out very boldly, with the 
growing confidence of the child in his experience ; the actual 
in the fairy tale will be emphasized less and less, and more 
weight given to the poetic and ideal truth of the esthetic 
and the ethical, so that there may remain, as a much-desired 
residue, an ideal tendency of the thoughts and higher reach of 
spiritual life. If, on the contrary, there were narrated only 
what is true and real, it might easily result in a rigidity of 
conception, which concerns itself only in the most common- 
place of sensuous realities, and which has no receptivity, 
either for the lofty creations of the poets, or for the sur- 
misings and wonders of religious faith. 

But all education must proceed from the individuality, 
only to raise the child above it, and to plunge him into 
universal human conditions. This latter, also, the fairy 
tale succeeds in doing. As a national tale, reflecting the 
principal features of the nation, it expands the child's nar- 
row consciousness through the development of the national 
germ, through the eternal reproduction of -the popular con- 
ception of nature and the world. As an international tale, 
it lets the child participate in the universal spirit of child- 
hood, which of old belonged to the race as a common 
possession. And, finally, it widens out the child's con- 
sciousness beyond what is national and universally accordant 
with child nature, by filling it with the simplest and most 
original notions in matters of morality, and by the certain 
generation of the ethical judgment and of the religious 
sentiment in the simplest relations which lie within the 
childish sphere. 

Thus do the fairy tales, which are at the same time 
classic materials, to which old and young love to return, 
lead from the most individual ideas, from which everything 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 71 

must grow that is to become strong, to the most general, 
which belongs to man as such. They serve in their 
sphere both the child nature and the highest purpose of 
education. 

Touching the moral value chiefly, Dr. Rein says : — 
" The genuine fairy tale always represents, in the play of 
the imagination, a deep moral content ; for its root is the 
poetic side of the mind, which clothes a higher truth in 
visible shapes and delivers it in the form of a story. The 
fairy tale hides a multitude of ethical concepts, which lead 
beyond the sphere of the imagination. Without encourag- 
ing any over-hasty moralizing, there is offered abundant 
opportunity to awaken the ethical judgment, that basis 
of all ethical valuation, — to develop it and to deduce 
maxims from it. Ethical ideas are the principal compo- 
nents of fairy tales. Upon these rests the purity that is 
the characteristic of innocent child nature. In this ethical 
attraction the principal reason is to be found why the 
child experiences such a deep satisfaction in the fairy tale, 
why he manifests such an easy and certain comprehen- 
sion of it, why he feels such a lively desire for it. The 
most simple and the most elementary notions in ethical 
matters are laid down in the fairy tales. But this sim- 
plicity facilitates the comprehension : the judgment is 
clear and undoubted. To the ethical notions are now 
added a large number of ideas of another sort, which are 
objectively comprehensible. For fairy tales, though in 
many respects remote from reality, yet stand in close 
touch with the ordinary relations of life. The ethical as 
also the intellectual material must now be methodically 
elaborated ; in a merely playful, occasional use of the fairy 
tales, as is very often proposed, it is to be feared that the 
evils which their opponents predict as consequences of fairy 
tales, especially with reference to morality, will really ap- 



72 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

pear, 1 because these evils can be excluded with certainty 
only by methodical treatment." 

As to further central material we are confronted by 
the difficulty of choosing it in such a way, that it may, on 
the one hand, continue that activity of imagination which 
has been aroused by the fairy tale ; on the other hand, that 
it may, by its definite and authentic relations to history, be 
suited to limit this free dominion of imagination, and to 
guide the pupil to the anticipation of historical develop- 
ment. In addition to this, of course, the formation of char- 
acter must be continued that has been begun with the grade 
of the fairy tale. The new material must at the same time 
be capable of being utilized ; the threads there attached must 
be spun out farther in order to form the tissue of a moral- 
religious character. This material Ziller has found in De 
Foe's story of Robinson Crusoe, whose great pedagogical 
significance was recognized by Rousseau. Ziller says : "This 
creation of imagination, Eobinson Crusoe, reminds one of 
that prehistoric time when man first laboriously struggling, 
and at first unassisted by any social connection, raised him- 
self above external nature, in order to control it and to use 
it for his purposes ; of that time, when by the greatest 
exertions the very simplest and most necessary experiences 
and inventions were made, whose significance is so easily 
obscured by the habit of constant use, and without which it 
would yet have been impossible for the human mind to cast 
a quiet glance upon the social ideas, whose realization, in 
view of his historical development, becomes his duty. 
When this standpoint has once been reached, a chronolog- 

1 The treatment of all poetical material, even in fairy tales and 
legends, which is not thoroughly digested and thought out, confuses 
and undermines the conditions under which we live in the world in 
general or in special circles, because of the mistakes and confusions 
which then take place. 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 73 

ical ascension from the most ancient history of Palestine 
to the history of the present becomes possible to the pnpil. 
Our aim is, to consider all the periods important in the his- 
tory of the development of the race, which in their most 
general features also correspond to the development of the 
pupil himself, so far as a poet or historian has described 
them in a classical manner. 

" At every cardinal point the conviction must possess us, 
that the human race cannot stand still here. It behooves 
us to transmit to the pupil the total acquisition of general 
human culture, beginning with the first historical germs. 
It behooves us, first of all, to make him acquainted with all 
the abundance of human will-relations in their varieties 
and modifications, and so to influence him, that, for all the 
circumstances of real life into which he must place himself 
by means of his imagination, his own judgment shall ren- 
der decisions in accordance with the ethical ideas or with 
the universal religious consensus of thought. But it be- 
hooves us, also, to arm him as far as possible with the theo- 
retic knowledge of the natural conditions of moral action. 
Such instruction every pupil needs ; to bring it about, we 
place as the center of the second school year, Eobinson 
Crusoe, properly edited," 

In the third school year the pupils are met, in the history 
of the Patriarchs, by the first representatives of human 
culture ; there follows the epoch of heroes (Judges) ; the 
epoch of an ordered national life under kings ; the life of 
Jesus also, or the world-view represented in him, counts 
as a stage in the development of general culture, to which 
one stage of individual development corresponds or should 
correspond ; just so do the two following stages appear 
necessary to Ziller ; they offer the dissemination, inner 
appropriation and the organizing embodiment of the Chris- 
tian idea in the life of nations, and are of high value to the 



74 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

school as a basis for the progressive Christianizing of the 
pupils. 

By the side of the history of the people of Israel is placed 
that of our own nation, of the German, and in such a way 
that the various steps may be referred to each other. To 
the Patriarchs correspond the Thuringian legends ; to the 
Judges, those of Siegfried ; so also are there corresponding 
kings (emperors), Charlemagne, Henry I., Frederick Bar- 
barossa, Rudolph (of Hapsburg) ; in addition to the life of 
Jesus, Protestants desire to treat that of the Reformer; 
beside the spread of Christianity they will study the 
struggle for the preservation and strengthening of Protes- 
tantism, until finally the doctrine of salvation, which forms 
the connecting and concluding portion of the history of the 
Reformation, seeks to lead the pupil into the social life of 
the church; just so, on the other hand, the intellectual 
co-experience of our great national uprising is to guide the 
pupil across to the common national life. 

These are great materials and great times that we have 
before us ; well suited to fill completely the soul of the 
child and to give it a content for life. This rich material 
of education is still further essentially enriched and ex- 
panded by a series of new materials. To the central 
material is first to be attached the related material from 
our national literature. The time of Charlemagne, for 
instance, is introduced by the legends of Roland and Charle- 
magne ; in like manner the stories of Hebel are used, in 
order to relieve the gloomy picture of the Napoleonic wars 
at the beginning of this century by a series of pleasing 
and inspiring traits of genuine human action. Also from 
the realms of nature and of forms much must be utilized 
that may aid in the understanding of the material of con- 
centration. Thus neither the life of the Patriarchs nor the 
life of Jesus could be fully comprehended, did not at the 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION 75 

same time geography and natural science inform us of 
the nature of the soil of Palestine, of its climate and pro- 
ductions, of its inhabitants, their customs and occupa- 
tions. 

Just so everything that touches the experience of the 
individual, throwing light upon the central subjects, must 
come within the range of our consideration. Thus it was 
the custom in Ziller's practice school at Leipsic, to observe 
the confluence of the Pleisse and Elster when in the study 
of Bible history Mesopotamia was under discussion; and 
his pupils marched out to the monument of Napoleon, and 
visited the battle-fields, when the year 1813 and the battle 
of Leipsic were discussed in history. And vice versa, when 
the Song of Moses after the Children of Israel have been 
saved from the hand of the Egyptians is sung, the teacher 
will not fail to call to mind the words of Kaiser Wilhelm 
after the victories in France ; and when pupils read how 
Moses sets up judges and writes laws, there will be allusions 
at the same time to local conditions of law and justice. 

Finally, to all the preceding there must be added such 
materials as tend to perpetuate the interest awakened by 
the central subjects, showing more clearly the continuity 
of the progress of civilization or bringing some study of 
details to a close. 

How is the connection between the central subjects and 
the other materials to be understood ? Is there to be a 
mixing up of branches of instruction ? Do the separate 
branches lose their identity ? Do they become lost in the 
central material, and have we instead only detached notices 
of them ? Nothing of the kind ! Points of attachment 
are to be secured among the separate branches; a unified 
mood, a closed circle of thought is to be created in the soul 
of the child. But every branch of study treats its material 
in its own peculiar way, each emphasizes those phases that 



76 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

belong to its character, each guides the thought into those 
channels that lie within its province and domain. 

That such a method of procedure is possible, has been 
clearly shown by the practice school of Ziller l at Leipsic. 

1 Tuiskon Ziller was born December 22, 1817, at Wasungen in 
Meiningen, where his father was Rector. After a suitable preparatory 
training at home, as well as in the city school in Wasungen, he entered 
the Gymnasium at Meiningen and afterward the University of Leipsic, 
where he studied Philology. Forced by family circumstances, he ac- 
cepted a position as teacher in the Gymnasium of Meiningen, after 
completing his academic studies ; but about 1850 he again entered the 
University of Leipsic, to study Jurisprudence. In 1853 he graduated 
from the university on the presentation of a philosophical thesis. 
Previous to this time he had manifested an interest in Pedagogy. 
In the year 1856 he issued his first pedagogical publication, entitled : 
"Introduction to General Pedagogy," and in the following year 
"The Government of Children." The path-finding reformer is not 
yet recognizable in these works. In connection with Dr. Ernest 
Barth he founded in Leipsic a society for the establishment and main- 
tenance of a practice school, which came into existence there in 1863. 
Just previous to this, beginning with the winter semester 1861-62, a 
Normal School (akademischpadagogisches Seminar) had been created, 
whose teachers gave instruction in the practice school. In the year 
1865 Ziller published his epoch-making work : " Grundlegung zur 
Lehre vom erziehenden Unterricht." Three years later, in company 
with Senff of Berlin, he founded the Society for Scientific Pedagogy, 
which at present counts more than eight hundred members. This 
society publishes an annual Report, the articles of which are discussed 
in the general conventions. Membership is obtainable on application ; 
the annual fee is four marks, for which members receive the annual 
Report and the stenographic reports of the discussions. In 1876 were 
published his " Vorlesungen iiber allgemeine Padagogik" (Lectures 
on General Pedagogy). His last work was " Allgemeine philosophische 
Ethik" (General Philosophical Ethics), 1881. Early in life he suffered 
from deafness, while toward the close he had to endure painful physi- 
cal ailments. He died of dropsy, April 20, 1882. 

The presiding officer of the Society for Scientific Pedagogy at the 
present time is Prof. Dr. Theodor Vogt, of Vienna. Next after Ziller 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 77 

On the other hand, one must become emancipated from the 
idea that the various branches can be taught only in the 
systematic arrangement that is found in conventional courses 
of study. 

Ziller's "Foundations for the Doctrine of Education," 1865, 
in which the above thoughts were first developed in a com- 
prehensive and thorough manner, is "a master-work, such 
as is not to be matched in the literature of pedagogy'' 
(Dorpfeld). It may be that the theory established by 
Ziller will suffer various modifications ; that much will at 
a later time be displaced by something better ; however 
that may be, for the pedagogy of the future the doctrine 
of Ziller will always indicate the trend. Three men of great 
merit, Dr. William Bern, Professor of pedagogy in the uni- 
versity of Jena, together with Pickel and Scheller, teachers 
in the normal school at Eisenach, have carried Ziller's 
theoretical deductions into practice, with happy modifica- 
tions of various points, in the epoch-making work, " Theory 
and Practice of Public Education according to Herbartian 
Principles." May the publishers succeed, in new editions, 
in carrying out yet more rigidly the concentration demanded 
by Ziller ! 

The reader will have observed that the word concentra- 
tion has, in the school of Herbart-Ziller, a meaning 
different from the conventional view. Concentration is 
a term which pedagogical shallowness has appropriated. 
Those on the one hand say, the school has the task to teach 
the pupil to read, write, cipher ; upon these it must concen- 
trate its efforts. We have already seen what relation these 

the man most deserving attention for his contributions to the pedagogy 
of Herbart is Prof. Karl Volkmar Stoy, of Jena (deceased 1885). He, 
too, conducted a Seminar and Practice School combined. His chief 
publication is " Encyclopadie der Padagogik." Other academic teach- 
ers are Waitz (deceased), Willmann (Prague) and Strumpell (Leipsic). 



78 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

branches sustain to thought study. Indispensable as skill 
in these branches is, it is wrong to put the main emphasis 
upon them. Our public school is to be a school of moral 
education, not a school of reading, writing and arithmetic. 

But those also who place the greatest emphasis upon 
thought study, often have a false view of the term concen- 
tration. For it is held, to give one instance only, that be- 
sides skill in those things requisite for social life, the chief 
subject for study in the (German) public school is religion, 
and people of this mode of thinking are willing to allow the 
other branches of thought study either no existence at all or 
but a meager one. This is, to use Stoy's happy expression, 
" surgical pedagogy," which seeks salvation in the partial 
or total amputation of individual branches of study, but for- 
gets that it thus develops only one side of the mind. But 
though the greatest exertions be made on this side, it is just 
as if one would compensate a cripple for the loss of one 
limb, by doubling the length of the other. Concentrating 
the instruction merely by striking out branches of study, 
does not lead to internal unification, and a school with only 
two branches, can still, in its teaching, produce two, and 
even more, concept-masses, entirely distinct from each 
other. 

Close to the Zillerian idea of concentration stands our 
sturdy Rhenish schoolman, Dorpfeld, who also demands 
that culture study should form the center of all education. 
He demands : — 

1. Normality of the curriculum (full number of branches, 

etc.). 

2. Unified departments of study, i.e., in a complex depart- 

ment of study, as in religion, the various branches, 
as Bible history, Catechism, etc., must be combined 
into one unified course of study. 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 79 

3. Inter-relating of all the branches in teaching, according 

to their several characters, 

(a) of the thought and language studies, 

(b) of the thought and form studies, 

(c) of the branches of thought studies among one another. 

4. Central position of religious instruction, — in the service 

of character-building. 

It is true, there is here no mention of the culture- 
historical epochs. But Dorpfeld has called attention to the 
fact that, " as an idea, this demand does not belong to the 
principle of concentration." Disregarding the theoretical 
phase and considering the practical side, the thought of the 
historical-culture epochs, in Ziller's sense, has something to 
do with concentration. He who carefully reads the theo- 
retical discussion of this idea in Ziller's " Grundlegung," 
and its methodical treatment in Rein, must soon see that 
the observing of the culture epochs as they are there given 
not only facilitates the carrying out of the concentrating 
function of the four principles above mentioned (i.e., pro- 
duction of a unified thought-content), but also considerably 
strengthens this concentration itself. Whether the ma- 
terials by means of which Ziller allows the culture epochs 
to be represented are properly chosen, and to what extent 
the matter may be carried out in schools of fewer grades, 
are the questions under discussion. After Dorpfeld has re- 
minded us that the question of the culture-historical epochs 
has not yet been discussed to that degree which would 
warrant practical educators taking position with reference 
to it, he gives the following advice : '' Whoever has at heart 
the concentration of instruction, let him take care to keep 
the four concentrating principles distinct from the idea of 
the culture epochs, and above all work to the end, that the 
former at least may soon receive general recognition. He 



80 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

who fails to heed this advice becomes guilty of a grave 
error, and himself lays obstacles in the way of the good 
cause ; the recognition of the principle of concentration is 
retarded and mutual agreement concerning culture epochs 
is at least not promoted." 1 

After we have spoken, in passing, of the selection and ar- 
rangement of the subject-matter in public school education, 
and shown that the representatives of the Herbartian ped- 
agogy would substitute for the conventional aggregate of 
studies a study system (Lehrplansystem — Ziller), a well- 
planned organism (ein plan voiles Geglieder — Dorpfeld), 
we proceed finally to the discussion of the elaboration of 
the subject-matter. 

A one-sided education does not lead to the desired ethical 
result, therefore instruction must strive to secure many- 
sidedness. Many-sidedness presupposes many individual 
impressions, which, in order to produce solidarity of con- 
sciousness, must be united. This uniting is called reflecting. 
The condition, therefore, of the many-sidedness to be created 
by teaching is reflection, and a change of attention is details. 

1 Friedrich Wilhelni Dorpfeld was born in 1824 at Wermelskirchen, 
in the circuit of Lennep. After attending the public school he en- 
tered the senior class of the Zahn Institute in Moers, which was at 
that time also a preparatory school. After a brief service as assistant 
teacher in a public school he attended the Normal Seminary in Moers, 
and then received an appointment as teacher in the above-mentioned 
Zahn Institute. He was afterwards teacher in a small village school. 
In 1849 he was called to the principalship of the schools of Barmen- 
Wupperfeld, in which position he remained until, owing to ill health, 
he was pensioned in 1880. It is especially worthy of remark that at 
the educational conference to which the Minister of Education had 
invited him (1872), he defended the unity and well-planned organism 
of the Course of Study, without, however, succeeding in all his 
demands. Ten years later he again defended the same issue in a 
work entitled, "Zwei dringliche Reformen." 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 81 

The subject-matter to be treated must first be separated 
into small divisions, small wholes of instruction or method- 
ical unities, each one of which is to be subjected to an elab- 
oration by itself. These methodical unities must not be too 
large, as they would then be difficult to retain, and yet they 
must be large enough to have a sufficiently large content. 
Thus Dorpfeld proposes in the story of the birth and flight 
of Moses to establish the following unities : (1) Israel's 
Oppression; (2) The Rescue of the Future Rescuer; (3) The 
Education of Moses ; (4) His First Appearance ; (5) The Con- 
sequences of this Attempt at Emancipation. 

How is the elaboration of the methodic unity to be 
effected ? 

We have seen in the psychological part of this essay, that 
notions must be apperceived, if our mental life is to be truly 
enriched by them ; we have also learned that apperception 
takes place only between similar related notions. If the 
new that we purpose to offer to the child is to become his 
permanent intellectual possession, we must inquire in the 
next place ; What concepts related to the new exist in the 
soul of the child ? These old concepts related to the new 
must, before offering the latter, be recalled vividly to con- 
sciousness, because only then will the new instantly and 
permanently unite with them. This recalling is effected in 
the preparation; the latter must push aside all foreign 
thoughts, and loosen from confusion those with which con- 
nection is to be made ; they must be, as it were, " the hooks 
to which the new is to be attached " ; only by means of 
these hooks does the new become a permanent intellectual 
possession, inasmuch as all learning, according to a dictum 
of Ziller, rests upon the assimilation of the new by the 
already known. Thus by means of preparation, provision is 
made for apperception, and therefore, as previously shown, 
for the inception of interest. Thus would be determined 



82 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

the character of preparation ; it must offer nothing new and 
unfamiliar ; its function is to analyze the child's thought- 
content, to separate it into two parts, one immediately con- 
cerned in the lesson, the other comparatively indifferent for 
the time being. But in order that the child may, as far as 
possible, himself select these necessary concepts, and thus 
a free-rising mental activity take place, the aim must be 
established before the preparation (separation, analysis). 
This aim must be akin to the older ideas, which are to be 
connectedly stated, so far as possible, by the children them- 
selves. The setting-up of this aim has the additional value, 
that it gives the pupils a vigorous motive to volition. The 
pupil must know from the beginning what is aimed at, if he 
is to employ his whole strength in the effort of learning ; 
and he will employ it, providing he knows definitely what 
is to be reached. To lead him up to the aim unconsciously, 
by questions and tasks whose purpose he does not clearly 
see, has this disadvantage, that neither a free-rising mental 
activity nor a clear, internally connected insight takes place. 
The pupil looks about him at the end of the thought move- 
ment with surprise; he knows not what has happened to 
him ; he cannot survey the road he has come ; he does not 
recognize the connection between the result of the lesson 
and his older knowledge; he does not reach that exalted, 
joyous mental activity to which he already receives the 
most favorable disposition by the mere announcement of a 
definite aim. Without aim, no will. But a statement of 
aim is necessary, not only at the beginning of a new unity ; 
every recitation must in fact proceed from an aim. The 
total aim of the entire unity is to be resolved into 
special aims for the different recitations. These special 
aims can for the most part be discovered and stated by 
the pupil. 

Therefore, first, statement of the aim, then analytical pre- 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 83 

liminary discussion. In connection with, the aim, which 
inducts the child into the midst of the domain of the con- 
cepts in question, the child may, with the teacher's assist- 
ance, express his thoughts on the points to be considered. 
We have above established the demand that the recitation 
must aim to secure the most intimate connection of con- 
cepts. Therefore the statements of the children, which in 
each case appear more or less detached and ragged, must be 
closely articulated with one another, and reduced to a series ; 
the children are to state the known material connectedly. 
Such a summing up of the analytical material lays solid 
ground for the teaching that is to follow. Although we 
will gladly concede that many teachers begin the recitation 
with a preparation, yet we cannot admit that we agree as to 
the manner of such preparation. Often the preparation 
consists in an address. In this manner teachers easily 
commit the error of stating new facts that might better be 
reserved to a later stage. But disregarding this point, 
they do not secure that degree of mental activity and inter- 
est which is necessary for the success of the recitation. 
But if opportunity is given to the child to express him- 
self concerning his home and street experiences, the most 
frigid intellect will begin to thaw out ; the new lesson ap- 
pears in an interesting setting and has gained a point of 
expectant attention. Besides, the teacher should never 
relieve the child of an activity that the latter can easily 
perform himself, and by means of which there is in- 
variably produced a certain feeling of power and of self- 
reliance. 

Belief has also been sought in the attempt to interweave 
the known material with the presentation. But in this way 
we expect the child to do two things at once, to recall the 
old, and piecemeal to unite the new with it. Both parts 
suffer by this arrangement. The older material does not 



84 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

become clear enough, to attract the new fully and entirely ; 
the foundation upon which we are to continue to build is 
not firm enough, and the connection is not permanent. If 
one would make the old sufficiently clear, the progress of 
the lesson suffers by it, and every one knows that pupils 
suffer ennui when no progress is made. A historical lect- 
ure for instance, which could presuppose nothing, would be 
a very monstrosity, and would leave upon the pupil about 
the same painful and wearisome impression which a poem 
provided with countless annotations, or a text covered with 
learned explanations, makes upon the reader. For as often 
as the address is interrupted to make explanations, so often 
occurs a stagnation in the flow of thought in the child ; the 
survey also is lost, which is such an essential part of the 
act of understanding. 

But it is totally impractical to add the known ideas 
immediately after the new has been presented. This is 
nothing, more than putting the cart before the horse. For 
the new that found no points of contact has already dis- 
appeared in part, and a subsequent reminding of what is 
familiar only indicates the effort to correct an error which 
should not have been committed. 

When the preparation has been properly made, and to a 
certain extent an intellectual appetite created, when the old 
concepts stand, as it were, ready to " pounce upon the new 
ideas to seize and overpower them," then, and not till then, 
can the presentation of the new, which is the second stage 
(synthesis) of the elaboration, be truly successful. 

The presentation assumes various forms according to the 
age of the pupils and the nature of the subject-matter. 
According to Ziller, a fairy tale is to be presented in the 
primary grade orally in story form, a language selection is 
to be read to older pupils, a geographical subject is to be 
presented by means of speaking and drawing; a physical 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 85 

process, by experiment and discussion. 1 If the preparation 
has been of the right sort, the reception and appropriation 
of the new will take place with ease and certainty without 
lengthy explanations and interrogations, so that the pupil, 
according to psychological laws, feels himself mentally 
exalted; the instruction thus proves educative. To the 
presentation must yet be added drilling in what has been 
presented to render the acquisition secure. This ends the 
first principal act of the process of instruction, the process 
of apperception. 

We now come to the second principal act. We are now 
to deduce abstract results upon the basis of the acquired 
sense-perception of the concrete subject-matter. The second 
principal act therefore is the process of abstraction. For 
the aim of the school is, according to Pestalozzi, to raise 
the pupil from vague sense-perceptions to clear conceptions, 
and Kant regards percepts without concepts as blind. The 
direction also, " From the particular to the general," merely 
says: "Pass from the sense-perception to the concept." 
How do concepts arise ? For a complete answer of this 
question, I refer, besides what is said in the psychological 
part of this treatise, to the excellent and comprehensive 
work of Dorpfeld, from which I select the following illus- 

1 A slight difference exists between Ziller and Dorpfeld as to the 
treatment of the historical material. Both agree that the understanding 
to be aimed at shall be clear, and enter fully into details ; they are 
further agreed that in this connection oral communication and free 
discussion shall go hand in hand. The difference consists in the follow- 
ing : Ziller causes the historical unity under consideration to be simply 
related (in the upper grades read) by the teacher, and after that fol- 
lows the discussion,with a view to getting a more detailed understanding. 
Dorpfeld, on the contrary, requires that in all grades the living word o+' 
the teacher, not the book, shall tell the story ; and further, that this 
relating shall from the beginning be a precise and detailed story, pet 
such that discussion is combined with this statement, step by step'. 



86 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

tration : If the pupil is to acquire the concept " Labiates," 
we must show him several plants (from the various genera) 
of this family. If now, unintentionally or guided by the 
teacher, the attention is directed to the fact that those 
plants have many characteristics in common, in this in- 
stance square stems, opposite leaves, axillary position of 
flowers, irregular calyx, irregular corolla, etc., and if these 
common characteristics are fastened in the mind correctly, 
the concept of Labiates is complete, even though the name 
be yet wanting. The forming of concepts rests upon the 
comparison of similar (therefore differing) objects. 

The stage at which this happens may be called the stage 
of comparison, or, since several concepts are knotted to- 
gether, the stage of attachment, or association. Aside from 
the value of relating thought for the purpose of concept- 
forming, it is necessary in order to bring cohesion, or unity, 
into the thought-content. Our entire personality consists 
in the unity of consciousness, which is disturbed when the 
mind is clouded by an incoherent jumble, and unrelated 
concept-masses come to rest side by side. 

But as the abstract is still combined with the concrete — 
is not yet clearly loosed from it — the fourth stage, by 
means of questions, lifts out the abstract results clearly and 
sharply from the individual cases, formulates them for the 
use of speech, brings them into systematic cohesion among 
themselves and with the older abstract material, thus 
securely impressing what has been acquired (stage of sys- 
tem or generalization). 

If the acquisition of the abstract has proceeded in this 
manner, the demand of Pestalozzi has been complied with, 
that every concept must proceed from the intuition (sense- 
perception), and that it must be possible to reduce it back 
again to the same. Hence it follows, that concepts must 
not be lightly given, because in that case no concrete no- 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 87 

tions would be attached to them. Just as intuitions without 
concepts are blind, so concepts that have not grown from 
the soil of living sense-perception are empty and valueless. 
To give concepts first and to fill them with content after- 
ward, is an unnatural procedure too much in vogue. 

To the fourth stage (system) must be added a fifth. It 
is not enough that the pupil has learned something; he 
must also learn to apply it, for application does not come of 
itself. One has frequent occasion to notice that children, 
for example, who in school manifest great skill in arithme- 
tic, are helpless in the presence of problems that their 
parents draw from the relations of home. It follows from 
this that pupils need guidance also in the application of 
knowledge. Therefore new objects (examples) are sought 
in order to recognize in them the concept (the rule, etc.) 
already acquired; tasks are assigned that are to be per- 
formed by application of the rule ; cases are offered from 
history and from life, in order to allow the pupils to decide 
whether a moral demand has been complied with or not, 
and in the latter case, to have it stated what the conduct 
ought to have been, or the children are led into supposed 
situations and the demand is made of them to indicate how 
they would act under the given circumstances (imagined 
acting, stage of application) . 

Let us now illustrate these five steps by an example. 
We will suppose we are to treat the s£ory of "Joshua's 
Farewell and Death." We must first establish our aim. 
The pupils may indicate occasions when farewells are said 
and what expressions are used (analysis). Then would 
follow the presentation of the details of the story (syn- 
thesis). Next, the farewell of Joshua would be compared 
with the parting of Moses (association), the most valuable 
moral or religious features selected from both occasions and 
fixed by a suitable quotation, such as, " I and my house, we 



88 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

will serve the Lord " (system). Finally, situations are 
found in life where these words spring from the hearts of 
devout men (application). 

Since every concrete lesson-unity may be treated accord- 
ing to these stages, whether it belongs to historical material, 
or to natural science, to geography, penmanship or drawing ; 
and since these stages are independent of the material, 
they are called formal stages. Herbart included analysis 
and synthesis in the term clearness ; he therefore counts but 
four steps. Dorpfeld, who agrees with Ziller's view in the 
matter, has endeavored to build a bridge for those to whom 
this method of elaboration seems too complicated. He 
shows that in these five stages there are three principal 
operations, which were known in the earlier practice since 
Pestalozzi, and were here and there in use, viz., observing, 
thinking (abstracting) and applying. But there was lack- 
ing, in the first place, the application of these principal 
operations to some of the branches, and in the second place, 
the division of the thinking process into association and 
system. Dorpfeld therefore counts three principal steps, 
the first two of which he subjects to a subdivision. Rein 
follows the above-given enumeration of Ziller, but uses 
German names. Professor Vogt also holds to the enumera- 
tion of Ziller, but for the word method he employs the more 
significant expression function. If we begin with the sim- 
plest enumeration we shall have the following scheme : — 

Dorpfeld. Herbart and Ziller. Rein. 

1. Observing: 1. Clearness: 1. Preparation. 

a. Introduction. a. Analysis. 2. Presentation. 

b. Observation. b. Synthesis. 3. Association and 

2. Thinking: 2. Association. Comparison. 

a. Comparison. 3. System. 4. Generalization. 

b. Association. 4. Method (Function). 5. Application. 

3. Applying. 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 89 

After we have shown the general nature of the formal 
steps, it remains to make a few special remarks. The aim 
must contain something familiar and something new, for 
the reason that instruction must make connection with it, 
but also because, as Herbart remarks, " a happy mixture of 
the new with the old interests most." It may take the 
form of a proposition, of a question to determine our men- 
tal position (and which does not require an answer, but is 
intended merely to direct the mind to the point in ques- 
tion), or of a task. Merely formal declarations of aim, 
such as, "we will to-day learn about the following para- 
graph," have no value whatever, because they neither 
direct the thoughts nor challenge the will. If the aim is 
not fully reached in one recitation, the pupils must be 
reminded of it in the next, and a special aim established 
for the remainder of the work. Analysis and synthesis 
must be kept clearly distinct, as their mixture always re- 
sults in checks and disturbances in the thought movement 
obstructing clearness of conception. Analysis must be 
applied to the entire content of the new ; it must, in a 
sense, construct a parallel with which the new may unite 
all along the line. Though one must be on his guard lest 
a part of the new appear already in analysis, yet the pupil 
may be permitted to anticipate results and make conject- 
ures. For, whether the expected takes place or not, the 
coincidence as well as the contrast is favorable to acquisi- 
tion. The presentation of the new upon the stage of syn- 
thesis takes place "by sections (law of successive clearness) . 
After one section has been presented, this is to be restated 
by the pupil connectedly. As the first restatement is 
usually still imperfect, it is supplemented by a discussion 
(correction and completion) ; thereupon the same pupil is 
to give the synopsis again, and if successful, other pupils, 
even weaker ones, are to be encouraged to make the restate- 



90 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

ment. In the same manner the other parts of the unity are 
treated, properly connected with the preceding, and finally 
stated by the pupil as his complete impression. When the 
pupil has acquired the facts, he must be led to form judg- 
ments concerning will-relations that may possibly be con- 
tained in the concrete material. Association must not be 
applied aimlessly to everything possible ; it must rather be 
directed toward valuable thought connections. So far as 
the selection of the abstract is concerned, the aim must be 
directed only to what is characteristic ; and where our moral 
conduct is concerned, to that which is expressed in the form 
of sayings, proverbs, quotations, etc. In the case of natu- 
ral history and geographical material, the separation of the 
abstract consists in a brief yet comprehensive statement 
of the subject, including everything essential, excluding all 
non-essentials. 

" Strange as the arrangement of instruction according to 
the formal steps may appear at first sight, yet it is by no 
means entirely new. It asserts itself in every good recita- 
tion in a greater or less degree, only, the mere empiricist 
bases it, not upon psychology, which must permeate the 
entire process of learning, but rather upon a certain instinct 
of tact, which he has acquired by long experience, the rea- 
sonableness of which, however, he is unable to demonstrate. 
The methods of instruction followed by the Herbart-Ziller 
school elevate this obscure feeling to a clear and definite 
pedagogical idea. Every step in the recitation is exactly 
prescribed by psychological laws solidly established. A 
highly important matter which previously had been left to 
the care of a feeling of happy tact, has by one stroke been 
brought into such clearness that it is capable of illumining 
the entire method of instruction" (Eein). 

The articulation of the recitation according to the formal 
steps is omitted where but a single point is to be enforced 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 91 

by the recitation, as in the matter of correction or reviews, 
or where the material has already been logically connected. 

The teaching process shonld have the form of conversa- 
tion, not that of catechism. Everything should be the 
result of a common reflection. Therefore the teacher must 
allow the child freedom of expression; he should never 
press the child to repeat previously established expressions. 
The questions should not apply to single detached points, 
but the child must become accustomed to express himself 
on the topic in connected speech. If a child has a comment 
to make on the statement of his fellow-pupil, he may raise 
his hand of his own accord, and the teacher gives him per- 
mission to add his own thought. In general, wherever pos- 
sible, the teacher should withdraw from the discussion and 
permit the pupils to settle it among themselves; in short, 
he should guide the discussion only formally. Except in 
examinations and reviews the pupil is generally never com- 
manded to speak. The lesson should so arouse the interest 
that from most pupils voluntary statements will result. 
Yet the application of this so-called method of disputation 
requires great caution, especially in large classes. 

It is the purpose of education so to form the thought- 
complex, that volition will result from it. But knowing 
alone will not do this, it must be connected with interest, 
which is the root of volition ; in brief : education has for 
its aim, to produce knowledge that incites to volition. By 
means of his knowledge the pupil must judge whether in 
his acting the purpose and means are ethically approvable. 
When instruction has generated knowledge that incites to 
volition, and that is controlled by ethical ideas, its task is 
done. But with this educative activity of instruction educa- 
tion is not yet concluded. If it did nothing more, it would 
merely succeed in forming human beings, who, though very 
clever and knowing exactly from an ethical standpoint what 



92 THE PEDAGOGY OF HEKBART. 

to do and what to leave undone, responding to the good and 
condemning the bad, might, nevertheless, come into conflict 
with ethically controlled intelligence, as soon as the fulfill- 
ing of these ethical demands is to some extent connected 
with difficulties, self-denial, etc. The actions of such per- 
sons would then be determined almost solely by the circum- 
stances of each case, and their volition would be almost as 
changeable as these. Their volition would never attain uni- 
formity ; it could never be predicted of them with certainty, 
how they would act in any given case. Such persons can 
never be relied upon; they are a shaking reed, which the 
wind of chance moves hither and yon. 

From this it follows that yet another educative activity 
is needed, if the entire volition is to be always in harmony 
with intelligence controlled by the ethical ideas. This ac- 
tivity we call Training (Zucht), or moral education, in the 
narrower sense ; we call it also immediate character-forming. 
Upon the basis of correct knowledge, which has been ac- 
quired by means of instruction, it seeks to strengthen correct 
volition. Whence it follows, that training can perforin its 
task only when, and in so far as, instruction has already suc- 
ceeded in doing its work. This necessitates a later appear- 
ance of moral training. 1 But even before the child possesses 
intelligence he must do various things, omit various things. 
He must come to school punctually, must sit quietly during 
the recitation ; he must not soil the walls, must not destroy 
the furniture, etc. It is true the little pupil does not come 
tardy with bad intention, nor does he whisper or move 
about on account of such intention ; therefore these trans- 

1 This, however, must not be understood to mean that teaching is to 
be entirely completed before training may begin its work. It is rather 
the function of the latter to enter at once into the several results of 
instruction, and in this sense it moves along, side by side, with instruc- 
tion. 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 93 

gressions are not subject to censure, ethically, but they are 
not suited to the work of the school ; they are disturbing, 
and must, therefore, be avoided. The child under school 
age does not tear the wall-paper or his clothing on account 
of a bad disposition, but all the same these naughtinesses 
must not be permitted, for they annoy and injure adults, 
some of them also the child himself; harmful habits are 
thus easily formed for the future (tendency to lack of 
cleanliness, etc.), when this naughtiness is allowed full 
play. The regulation of what the child is to do and to 
avoid belongs to the idea of Government. 

There are, therefore, in all three activities of education, 
which, according to the sequence of their appearance, form 
the series, Government, Instruction and Training. 

Instruction has already been discussed. We will next 
speak of 

Government. 

Its purpose is not really to form character; it merely 
seeks to keep order. Its purpose is to prevent everything 
that might disturb instruction and training, annoy adults, 
and harm them or the child, but that is not really bad, 
because it does not arise from a bad will. 

How are these tendencies to naughtiness to be reached ? 
Since they arise from the desires, it is best to stop up the 
sources from which the desires spring. If we would not 
have the child restlessly move about in his seat, twist and 
stretch himself (all of which disturbs the recitation), we 
must not, in the first place, challenge these movements by 
prolonging the time of the recitation farther than is just 
and right, but we must have due consideration for the needs 
of his physical organism. 1 If this limit is not maintained, 

1 Here it is well to think of the significance of gymnastics as a 
means of government. 



94 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

the desires will break through the school order. The con- 
sequence is that the teaching will not succeed, and disorderly 
habits will be formed. 

Just as government must see to it that the needed bodily 
requirements do not act disturbingly, so it must take care that 
mental requirements do not produce confusion and disturb- 
ance, or inconvenience of another kind. Well known in this 
direction is the child's impulse to activity. If this impulse 
is not suitably provided for, it will occasion various dis- 
turbances. If a class, for instance, is busy with the written 
solution of a task, and in such a case one child has com- 
pleted his work before the others and no suitable employ- 
ment is provided for him, he will very often provide him- 
self with unsuitable work ; he will try to whisper with his 
neighbor, spoil his books with his lead-pencil, carve letters 
into his desk, etc. Such mischief can be prevented, if the 
child is never left entirely without employment; in the 
above case, if the pupil is provided with a new task, not 
with purpose to cultivate, but merely to prevent mischief 
(which does not exclude that the solution of the task may 
incidentally also have a cultivating effect). One of the 
most important employments as a means of government is 
play. This secures the child against idleness and ennui, 
preventing, therefore, all forms of mischief that follow in 
their train, as well as the growth of harmful habits, which 
would otherwise germinate in that soil. 

A second means of government is superintendence. The 
mere presence of a teacher, especially of one whom the chil- 
dren highly respect or to whom they are strongly attached, 
is sufficient to keep them within the necessary bounds, to 
prevent improper thoughts from springing up, to forestall 
all mischief, and to render superfluous all severer measures of 
government. Very often not even a reminder to do or to omit 
this or that becomes necessary. Raising a finger, calling by 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 95 

name a child just beginning some disorder, is often sufficient 
to recall the presence of the teacher, and to nip in the bud 
any disposition toward insubordination. Watchfulness of 
the teacher, therefore, is a very excellent means of preserv- 
ing good order. 

It becomes necessary also at times to command and for- 
bid. This requires obedience. We can demand obedience 
of a pupil in a twofold sense. Either the pupil may be 
asked to carry out the will of the teacher without a knowl- 
edge of the reasons which the latter has, or else the will of 
the teacher is carried out, after the pupil, in consequence 
of previous reflection, has made the teacher's will his own. 
Government is concerned with the obedience of the first kind, 
which is commonly spoken of as blind obedience, because 
as long and as far as government must be employed, under- 
standing is not yet possible. This obedience the teacher 
may secure the more easily, if he has the love of the pupil 
and thus the means of influencing him. The child obeys 
authority almost instinctively. The pupil who loves his 
teacher obeys so as not to lose his favor, for which he cares. 

Commands and prohibitions involve, when necessary, re- 
proofs, threats and punishments (loss of liberty or privi- 
leges, and in rare cases, corporal punishment). But all 
reproofs and threats must be connected with no explanations 
why this or that is demanded ; all punishments as measures 
of government must be inflicted without directing the atten- 
tion to the fact that the naughtiness committed was bad, and 
therefore reprehensible ; they must be carried out without 
exciting the childish mind ; they must appear to the child 
as a natural consequence necessarily following upon the act 
committed. Thus the child is made wiser and is trained. 
For government is not to form character, but to prevent mis- 
chief. Its purpose is not really to make better, but only 
for the nonce to deter ; it aims at order for the moment. 



96 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

If government succeeds well, the pupil unconsciously 
accustoms himself to punctuality, order, diligence, cleanli- 
ness, etc. These qualities are called mediate virtues, because 
in themselves they are not yet good, but by the method of 
their application may contribute to the promotion of the 
good. That diligence, e.g., is not a good in itself, may be 
seen in criminals, whom certainly no one will praise ; but it 
becomes a virtue, if it finds application in the service of the 
good (as when one labors so that he may have to give to the 
needy, etc.). 

Moral Training. 

It is the care of training to see that the conduct of the 
pupil, not only during the time of education, but also later in 
life, is in accordance with the ethical judgment, and not 
contrary to it. Training therefore must see to it that the 
volition of the pupil receives its tendency from the ethical 
ideas, that every subsequent volition shall bear the imprint 
of a personality which has placed its volition exclusively in 
their service. 

How is such a tendency established ? 

In order to make this clear, we must recall the nature 
of volition. Volition springs from the desires, when with 
these is coupled the conviction that the thing desired can be 
attained. The volition is therefore preceded by a reflection, 
which may concern itself also with the duties, considera- 
tions, etc., that are involved. From all this will be seen 
that with every volition a considerable number of concepts 
is simultaneously raised into consciousness. In consequence 
of this reproduction, these concepts assume the character of 
belonging together. The attainment of the thing desired is 
coupled with a feeling of pleasure ; an image of the volition 
remains behind in the soul, having the impulse to become as 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 97 

clear as possible, i.e., to reproduce the feeling of pleasure that 
manifested itself at the time of the first Abolition. Such a will- 
image, created by a single act, is called a single volition 
(Einzelwollung). The oftener an identical act of volition is 
repeated, the stronger becomes the single volition, and soon 
a habit of definite action is formed, a habit, from which, if it 
has been fostered sufficiently long, we cannot loose ourselves. 
Let us assume that such a will-image, or single volition, 
has been formed in the soul. ISTow let a new volition, merely 
similar to the earlier, spring up in the mind. Then, accord- 
ing to the law of similarity, a movement takes place among 
the concepts determining the earlier volition, and with these 
the will-image then acquired rises. This will-image strives 
to attain clearness, and now tests the new volition ; it finds 
that the latter tends in the same direction, and that by the 
realization of the latter, the impulse dwelling in the older 
will-image, though not in all the details, yet in a general 
way, is gratified, and now the new volition is aided by the 
older image, so that it attains to realization much more vig- 
orously than would otherwise have been the case. There 
are now in existence two similar will-images that are mutu- 
ally related, just like similar (compound) concepts. 1 Just 
as in the latter the new elements unite to form a new con- 
cept, the psychic or logical notion, just so the identical 
members of the individual acts of volition mutually grasp 
one another, and, as they repress the contradictory, irrecon- 
cilable elements that are contained in the concepts forming 
their basis, they fuse into a new will-image, which appears 
not only much more vigorous, more vivid and more clear, 
but, as the individual peculiarities of the single volitions 



1 For the sake of clearness we think at first of the will-image as 
still apart; in reality the union takes place already during the act of 
volition. 



98 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBAKT. 

have been kept at a distance from it, also more refined. 
From the single volition there has been formed a more general 
volition which may be compared to the psychic concept. 
Each new similar volition renders yet more general the 
volition that has already been generalized just as the psychic 
concept is made more general by further intuitions, thus 
approaching the logical concept. From the fusion of single 
volitions universal volitions are formed. 

In the preceding we have assumed that the existing 
image of the single volition is approached by a similar 
volition. How does the psychic process unfold when the 
new will is opposed to the older will-image ? The earlier 
acquired will-image is (perhaps) reproduced in this case 
by the law of contrast and tests the new volition ; it finds 
that the latter does not tend in its (the former's) direction, 
that it even strives against the degree of clearness already 
achieved by the former, and therefore the former suppresses 
it. If every volition that is opposed to the previously 
acquired will-image is not suppressed, it is because the 
earlier will-image is not reproduced at all, or not with suf- 
ficient force ; memory of knowledge is in this case but weak 
or entirely lacking. 

The memory of the will (reproduction of the will-image) 
is based, as we have seen, upon the excitation of the concepts 
by whose co-operation the will-image was produced. If the 
will-image is to appear distinct, strong, the concepts must 
be associated very intimately. This is the case, for in- 
stance, when it has been produced after energetic, thorough 
reflection. A volition that has cost us much reflection we 
recall very distinctly. Then, again, the entire thought-com- 
plex must be so closely connected that the concepts in ques- 
tion may be instantly set in motion, so that the influence of 
the will-image upon the new volition may not come too late. 
The will-image comes forth clearly, only when the new 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 99 

volition has already expressed itself in action. When the 
latter has happened, the old will-image finds a new com- 
pleted one, dissimilar to itself, and the resnlt of the juxta- 
position is an arrest of endeavor to attain clearness on the 
part of the older will-image. This arresting causes a feeling 
of displeasure (repentance) . If, on the contrary, the older 
will-image is reproduced rapidly and vividly enough, it will 
remand the opposing volition, because this cannot satisfy 
the impulse to clearness residing in the former. From what 
has been said, it follows that the memory of the will de- 
pends upon the close connection of the concepts, i.e., upon 
orderliness in concept life. Here it is plainly seen what 
influence education exerts upon the memory of the will, and 
as we shall see still more clearly in the course of this dis- 
cussion, upon the entire culture of the will. 

We must now examine yet more closely how the testing 
of the new volition by the older generalized will-image takes 
place. While both series of concepts forming the basis of 
volition stand arrayed against each other for a time, the 
older and stronger of them, i.e., that one in which the gen- 
eral volition resides, tests the younger, weaker one, to see 
whether it have a sufhcient number of related elements to 
warrant a fusion of both thought-masses. If this is not the 
case, if they contrast in several essential members, and 
•therefore the single volition cannot be apperceived by the 
general volition, the latter rejects the former as inadmis- 
sible. A certain purpose is then given up because " we 
have considered the matter in a different light." If, on the 
other hand, the single volition agrees in the essentials with 
the general volition, a fusion of the two takes place, in 
other words an apperception. The thought-masses thus 
united now develop a total force of endeavor such as the 
single volition never could have attained, and which secure 
to it a high degree of energy and power to resist ; while, on 



100 THE PEDAGOGY OF HBRBART. 

the other hand, the general volition is strengthened by the 
appereeived single volition. 

The result of examination of the newer concept series by 
the older with reference to its apperceivability is a judg- 
ment, whether the new individual volition be in harmony 
with the general volition or not, and as the general volition 
strives to come into clearness, the judgment implies for the 
new volition also a command or a prohibition. Such a judg- 
ment, implying a command or a prohibition, yet so general 
that it applies not only to a single case, but to an entire 
class of like cases, is called a practical principle, or maxim. 

He who in youth is trained to give drink to the thirsty, 
food to the hungry, etc., will develop a habit of volition 
that is in harmony with this general volition ; every indi- 
vidual volition which militates against the latter is turned 
back, repressed. A general judgment has been formed, 
which in every similar case is perceived by him who per- 
forms the act of volition, in the form of a command or 
a prohibition. This judgment (this practical principle, or 
maxim) is: "Help your neighbor in trouble." As this 
proposition fits all cases of human life that belong here, it 
becomes for the person a norm for all future volition that 
belongs to this class. When it has become a psychic power, 
the tendency of an entire class of volitions answering the 
ethical demand is secured for the future. 

If the ethical principle is to be a power that shall dom- 
inate the individual volition, it is not sufficient, as may be 
seen from what has been said, that it be merely committed 
to memory or learned by dictation. If the maxim is to 
endure through life, it must have come into existence through 
life and from life ; true maxims are always the expression 
of a piece of autobiography. Maxims that have their source 
in thoughtful reflection (i.e. in the class-room) must first 
become vitalized in order to become genuine maxims. By 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 101 

frequent application a firm, reliable habit based upon the 
understanding must be formed. 

Training must see to it, as far as possible, that all classes 
of volition are placed under the dominion of ethical maxims, 
in order that a quiet, uniformly distributed passion for the 
good be produced. If the ethical principles possess such 
influence in the mind of the person that they dominate the 
entire individual volition, we speak of a moral character. 
Character in general is uniformity and firmness of the 
entire will. When bad principles are the dominating power 
in the mind, the character is an immoral one. A person 
who is not at all consistent, i.e., does not act according to 
principles, either good or bad, is characterless. Children 
possess no character ; in their minds it can but gradually 
come into being. What they would do or omit, have or do 
without, endure or not endure, is not governed consistently 
by ethical principles. The beginning of the formation of 
such consistency or uniformity of action coincides with the 
formation of independent general ethical volitions that have 
sprung up on the basis of several similar acts of volition. 
These general volitions are the points of crystallization in 
the confusion of individual volitions, the latter of which are 
attracted and apperceived by the former, providing their 
structure permits this. These general volitions, which 
begin to determine, i.e., to apperceive, or to suppress, the 
individual volitions, form the beginning of that which is 
called the subjective part, the subjective basis, of character. 
This phase of character has its origin in the volition that 
springs from the apperceiving concept-mass ; opposed to it 
is the objective part, the individual volition, which springs 
from the various desires. The subjective part of character 
determines ; the objective is the part to be determined. 
From the remarks concerning the nature of interest, the 
deep significance of instruction for the objective phase of 



102 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

character becomes at once apparent. The aim of instruc- 
tion is a many-sided interest ; from this results the many- 
sided volition. So far as the subjective side of character 
is concerned, it is the task of instruction in conjunction 
with training to see to it that not several such dominating 
thought-groups, either side by side, or following one another, 
come into power, but that the unity of that group becomes 
established upon which rest the energy and consequence 
of volition peculiar to the character, and by means of which 
also a restraint may be placed upon the dominion of the 
passions. 

We shall now speak of the method of procedure in Train- 
ing. It is the task of immediate character-forming (train- 
ing) in every sphere to place the pupil in such situations 
and to open to his interest such opportunities as will enable 
him to act with success in accordance with his own thoughts. 
But these opportunities must not be so manifold at one 
time that the memory of the will suffers. The latter is pro- 
duced only when acts of volition of a like kind are often 
repeated. Hence it is demanded that training shall form 
the will of the pupil in relations of one kind. In well-ordered 
communities (therefore in direct contrast with a life upon 
the street), where the right, according to Goethe, is not 
regarded as medicine, but belongs to the diet of life, a 
constant, even and regularly recurring mode of action may 
be inaugurated, and it is precisely this that is essential; 
for not an isolated, scattered action of will is to be 
allowed to spring up, but an active, consistent volition is 
to arise, and for this it is most essential that every voli- 
tion come into strict accord with habit and regularity, 
into strict accord with memory. Thus we have a volition 
into which memory has entered, i.e., one in which the 
individual need not first reflect what and how he must 
act, but rather one in which this is all determined before- 



PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION. 103 

hand in every instance. Where the memory of the will is 
wanting and frivolity takes its place, it behooves us to 
train the pupil by restraining and constraining in order 
that a conformity and uniformity of volition may result. 
Training presupposes authority and love. What the pupil 
has lost sight of, it must recall to him. To his wavering 
and straying it must constantly give outward steadiness 
and uniformity, and the latter must be clearly illustrated 
for the children in the conduct of the teacher. But here 
we must not substitute reasoning for the establishment of 
habit. The children ought not to be argued with. As a 
second effect, training should be determining. It should 
cause the pupil to choose for himself, not the teacher for 
him, for it is the character of the latter that is to be deter- 
mined. When the subjective part of character begins to 
appear, then begins the negative phase of training. Though 
one ought not to argue with children, yet, as soon as the 
pupil begins to reason for himself, such reasoning must not 
be abandoned to itself. The teacher must, reasoning, fall 
in with the argument, and prevent a wrong conclusion. 
But the chief consideration for training is the consequence 
or inconsequence of acting. 

Finally, training is at the proper time to warn and reprove, 
even though the pupil has already reached the point of moral 
self-determination. But when the pupil has already de- 
served confidence, not only for his purposes, but also for his 
principles, then training must retire. When self-education 
has once been assumed, it should not be disturbed. 

This would be the form of training, if it were based 
merely upon the moral law which is to be developed into 
conscience. As we have seen in the discussion of instruc- 
tion, education must bring into co-operation not only the 
idea of God, but also religious thought and life in general. 
This co-operation must manifest itself, therefore, also in the 



104 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

measures adopted by training. That the moral laws are 
the will of God, the child has learned from previous instruc- 
tion. When in the course of training a reminder becomes 
necessary, this takes the form of an exhortation (a remind- 
ing of God) . When it has been previously mentioned that 
training requires a constantly repeated volition and action, 
there follows from its application to the religious life an 
accustoming to a regular religious worship, to private prayer, 
to family and public worship. Here, too, the blessing of 
such revivings of the religious thought and feeling lies 
not only in their ardor but also in their constancy. It is a 
great blessing when a child grows up in a community where 
these exercises of the religious sense belong to " the diet of 
life." 

Queries. 

1. In what points does the pedagogy of the Herbartian school dif- 
fer from the customary ? 

2. Where are there points of contact ? 

3. What may be urged in favor of opposing views ? 



PART IV. 

SPECIAL METHODS. EXAMPLES OF CONCEltf- 
TBATIOK 

A. EPOCH — VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 

I. Character-forming Material. 

According- to the reasoning of Ziller, material for char- 
acter-forming must constitute the nucleus of the entire 
curriculum, and in accordance with this view central studies 
have been established for each school year that represent 
in their sequence the development of human society, 
through which every individual must pass. The character- 
forming material for the public school from the beginning 
of the third school year consists of two parallel series, one 
of which belongs to sacred, the other to profane history. 

The religious character-forming material for the sixth 
year is the life of Christ. Parallel to this we have first the 
history of the voyages of discovery and then the life of 
Luther, the renovator of the Christian church. 

If we seek how to make connections between these two 
series, we find abundant opportunity to do so between the 
life of Christ and that of Luther. But less numerous are 
the connections between the life of Christ and the story of 
the explorers, though they are by no means altogether want- 
ing. 

Through Christ the national narrowness of the King- 
dom of Heaven is removed once for all; the heathen 

105 



106 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

from the east and from the west are to have a part in the 
Kingdom of Heaven. To snch peoples as still sit in dark- 
ness the travels of discovery call attention. The sending 
forth of the disciples directs attention to the mission of 
the nations of our Christian civilization to the heathen, 
and we discover a most striking contrast between the self- 
sacrificing love of Christ and the selfishness that mocks 
every description of those who bore his name. 

The moral-religious reflections made at this place also 
throw light upon the more recent attempts at colonization 
of the German Empire, over which earnest men are watch- 
ing, lest in our colonies the spirit of selfishness that would 
be inclined to offer those children a serpent instead of meat 
gain the ascendency. 

To the character-forming material are now added in ap- 
propriate places, hymns, proverbs, statements from the cat- 
echism, and other quotations. The selection is here so easy 
that we refrain from a statement of details. 

II. German. 

(a) Of reading material there is no lack. The story of 
the life of Christ and tales of travels and voyages of dis- 
covery are used for this purpose. Besides these poems we 
have both such as are to be read cursorily and those that 
are to receive an exhaustive treatment. 

(b) Poems. In connection with the intercourse between 
the Spaniards and Islanders is to be read Seume's poem, 
"The Savage," which is to be considered especially from 
the standpoint of true and false culture. (Eousseau's 
dictum : " Go into the forest and become men.") In this 
poem the Indians are placed in a too favorable light ; hence 
a proper correction must be made, for which the geography 
lesson will also offer abundant opportunity. 



SPECIAL METHODS. 107 

The Spaniards expect great things of the newly discovered 
world and emigrate in large numbers, but are bitterly dis- 
appointed. Here Freiligrath's poem, " The Emigrants/' is 
in place. 

Columbus navigates the sea, whose characteristics, surface 
of bottom, inhabitants, etc., are discussed in the recitations 
of other branches of study. Thus there are also offered 
connections for Schiller's "Diver." Connected with this, 
on account of relationship of the ideas, may be "The Glove," 
" The Little Hydriot," by Mueller. 

Finally "The Dirge of Nadowessier," by Schiller, and 
" Silence of the Sea," by Goethe, would also be treated. 

(c) For German composition would be furnished : — 

1. A brief statement in prose of the poem by Seume. 

2. A comparison of the persons in "The Diver" and 

those in "The Glove," respectively. 

3. While the pupils are reading about Columbus, 

they arrange a list of the principal character- 
istics of the hero, and that according to definite 
heads, as industry and perseverance, piety, no- 
bility of mind, etc. Some of these heads are 
afterwards developed in the form of essays. 

4. Additional materials for composition are furnished 

by descriptions from the realms of biography 
and natural history, as will soon be seen. 

(d) For grammatical instruction the correction of essays 
will offer occasion. Errors of punctuation will give rise 
to the discussion of the simpler forms of the complex 
sentence and the distinction of the latter from the contracted 
sentence. 

(e) In the realm of the history of literature the biography 
of Freiligrath belongs, to which will be found points of 
attachment in "The Emigrants." The poem was written in 
1832, in Amsterdam. 



108 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

(/) Prosody. — The poem, " The Savage," offers occasion 
for the discussion of (1) Alliteration, (2) Assonance. In 
this connection are developed the notions of 

1. Paired and crossed rhymes ; 

2. The poly-syndeton ("and it bubbles and seethes and 

it hisses and roars"). 

3. The hyberbole ("the spray to the welkin upsoars"). 
The contrasting of the two poems will show that rhyme 

is not essential to the character of poetry. The circumstance 
that in " The Diver " there is at one time a rhyme of the 
word keck with iveg, clearly indicates that rhyme is a 
matter of the ear, and not, as the pupil might easily infer, 
of the eye, because here the word weg must be pronounced 
iveck, in accordance with the usage in vogue in some parts 
of the country. 

III. Geography. 

The voyages of Columbus lead to more detailed study of 
the ocean, which may be connected with what the pupils 
may yet remember in this direction from the treatment of 
the Crusoe material. There will come up for discussion : — 

1. Open and Sargasso sea ; 

2. Color and movements of the sea; 

3. Taste of salt water ; salt deserts. 

Boys might be interested in a more careful investigation 
of navigation, again calling into prominence this phase of 
the Crusoe material. 

Columbus sails over the Atlantic Ocean. The name sug- 
gests the mythical Atlantis, of which various island groups 
are regarded as the remains. 



SPECIAL METHODS. 109 

On the ocean were found fragments of pumice-stone ; this 
leads to a consideration of the volcanic origin of the West 
Indies and other islands, together with their description. 

The Lesser Antilles. Columbus first rests upon the 

Canary Islands. 
Afterward he lands upon an islet of the Bahama Group. 

(Cf. Natural History.) 

The circumstance that settlements are made by the Span- 
iards upon the Greater Antilles, necessitates a description 
of these islands. 

The treasures that Columbus brings home for his vindi- 
cation become the occasion for the discussion of the theme : — 

"The Importance of the Greater Antilles for the Com- 
merce of the World." (Cf. Natural History.) 

From the study of the West Indies, whose name is ex- 
plained by the voyage of Columbus, we turn our attention 
to the North American Continent, whose middle and north- 
ern portions are described, while the southern part remains 
undeveloped until the discussion of the discovery and con- 
quest of Mexico. 

The poem, " The Savage," furnishes points of suggestion 
for the discussion of the Indian, — his form, character, relig- 
ion, customs and manners, and mode of living. 

"The Emigrants" gives opportunity to describe the 
occupations of the farmer, emigration, forests, prairies, etc. 
By way of contrast there is given a description of the 
home and industrial life in great cities (wealth, luxury, 
industry) . 

The commercial intercourse between the old world and 
the new leads to the discussion of the means of this inter- 
course : — Steamer Lines, Transatlantic Cable, Pacific Rail- 
roads. 



110 THE PEDAGOGY OF HEKBART. 

Upon his last voyage Columbus sought along the coast of 
Central America for a passage between the Atlantic and 
the Pacific Oceans. This offers occasion to describe the 
country and to mention the attempt (and recent failure, — 
Tr.) to construct a Panama Canal. (Promoter; compari- 
son with Suez Canal; what advantages offered by each?) 

The plan of Columbus to reach India by way of the 
West was conceived on the presupposition of the rotundity 
of the earth. Here are points of connection for the study 
of mathematical geography. This same branch is also re- 
ferred to in the discussion of : Trade Winds, Ocean Cur- 
rents, Relations of Temperature, Eclipses of the Moon, etc. 

IV. Nature Studies. 

(a) Physical Geography. — Columbus found in the Sar- 
gasso Sea great meadows of sea-weed. 

1. Description of the Algse. 

2. General view of oceanic vegetation. 

The fact that masses of sea-weed are torn loose and sink, 
leads to the 

Origin of Coal. (The theory that refers the origin of 
coal to the carbonization of sea-weed is ably defended by 
Dr. Friedrich Mohr, in his " Geschichte der Erde." Those 
who cannot accept this theory will also take up the dis- 
cussion of coal formation at this point.) 

The carbonization of woody fiber is shown in wood 
which for some time has been kept under water and thus 
cut off from the air. Excursions (when possible) to peat- 
diggings and coal mines. 

Observation of differences between anthracite and bitumi- 
nous coal and peat, with reference to their origin. (Again 
consult Mohr.) 



SPECIAL METHODS. Ill 

The Bahama Islands where Columbus landed are of coral 
formation. Hence appears at this point the description of 
organ-pipe coral. Connected with this description of island- 
forming corals is that of the red coral, as well as of other 
valuable products of the ocean bottom. Mother-of-pearl, 
sponges, the shark, one of the inhabitants of the sea. 

From the vegetable kingdom is described the sugar-cane ; 
from the mineral kingdom, gold, to obtain which, the Span- 
iards bent all their energies. The latter might, however, be 
postponed until the conquest of Mexico (California) is treated. 1 

(6) Physics. 2 — For his orientation upon the sea Columbus 

1 Tobacco and the potato nright also be profitably treated at this 
point. Considering, however, the abundance of materials that must 
be treated, these subjects are better postponed until the introduction 
of these plants into Germany comes up for discussion. 

2 The reader will have noticed that the materials belonging to the 
several branches of Natural Science vary greatly with respect to their 
quantity ; so that a lesson in Physics might already be disposed of, 
while the topic in Physical Geography is yet far from completion. 
"What is to be done in the recitation hour in Physics during this time ? 
How does this arrangement secure to the several branches that uniform 
progress which the principle of concentration requires ? These ques- 
tions are answered by placing on the program of recitations but one 
topic : Natural Science. In the hours set apart for this the class dis- 
cusses whatever is necessary, whether it is descriptive Geography, or 
Physics or Chemistry. But it must not be thought that this method 
of procedure has been invented for the benefit of Zillerian Concentra- 
tion ; it is based rather upon the fact that factors which must be 
assigned to various branches of Natural Science are in reality inter- 
linked with one another, so that they must receive equal attention in 
individual investigations. When in this way a quantity of natural- 
science material has been treated, this will be classified from such 
standpoints as Natural Science, Physics and Chemistry, and thus 
scientific order will be brought into the material that originally was 
brought to the attention of the pupil . in its natural connections. Sys- 
tematic arrangement, therefore, is seen to be the conclusion of natural- 
science instruction. 



112 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

makes use of the compass. This is described. A sewing- 
needle is magnetized and brought into a free-swinging posi- 
tion, whereupon this will, like the needle of the compass, 
point to the north. This circumstance, combined with the 
fact that upon the first voyage of Columbus the needle 
deviated in a remarkable manner toward the west, urges to 
a discussion of terrestrial magnetism. The whole subject 
of magnetism will have to be treated exhaustively at this 
point. (Electro-magnetism ?) 

The story of the treasures of the sea stimulates the in- 
quiry as to how they are brought to the surface. We must 
therefore treat : Diving and diving apparatus, especially 
the diving-bell ; swimming. 

(c) Chemistry. In case gold is discussed, the teacher 
should not fail to point out the distinction between the 
precious and the base metals. This leads especially to the 
oxidizing of copper and iron. Breathing in the diving-bell 
and the necessity of supplying fresh air indicate the com- 
position of air (Oxygen). 

V. Arithmetic. 

The task of arithmetic at this stage is the introduction 
to Fractions. The origin of fractions is shown in the con- 
struction of a compass-chart. The line from north to south 
divides the circle into halves. The line from west to east 
produces fourths. A further division produces eighths, 
then sixteenths, and finally thirty-seconds, with which the 
division is usually complete. All ideas associated with frac- 
tions, such as reduction descending and ascending, etc., can 
thus be shown objectively. To show these last-mentioned 
operations effectively, we may divide the circle into degrees 
(cf. geometry). 

A further exercise will consist of a similar division of a 
circular grass-plot or of a garden-bed. 



SPECIAL METHODS. 113 

Decimal fractions are regarded as complements of inte- 
gers. They can also be treated in connection with common 
fractions. 

Arithmetical material for common fractions is supplied, 
for example, by measuring the alloy used in gold coins 
(cf. Nature study). Then may be computed, for instance, 
what fraction of the population of Cuba are (a) white, 
(b) colored, (c) Asiatic, (d) negroes. 

In computing by decimals, the results per cent would be 
sought in each case. Additional exercises, both in common 
and in decimal fractions, might be as follows : to make 
computations as to the receipts and expenditures, debts, 
imports, exports of the West Indies, also as to the relative 
numbers of inhabitants and extent of these islands ; the 
relative production of tobacco of Cuba and of Germany ; as 
to the postal and telegraphic intercourse between the West 
Indies and the various cities of North America, etc. 

It cannot be denied that there is yet needed a careful 
collation of statistical material, if our arithmetical teaching 
is to draw its life from thought study, though there are 
even now many sources for this kind of material, for in- 
stance, the statistical tables in the newer manuals of geog- 
raphy, encyclopaedias, etc. (Texts recommended for German 
schools are, Geography : Daniel und Guthe ; Arithmetic : 
Hartmann und Euhsam.) 

VI. Geometry. 

The study of the compass-chart is followed by that of the 
circle. The lines of division form radii and diameters. 
The deviation of the magnetic needle leads to the division 
of the circle into degrees, and this to the measurement of 
angles by means of degrees. Then follows a discussion of 
the ellipse and the oval, and a comparison of these with 



114 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

the circle. Later on the computation of the circle may be 
taken up in connection with some concrete problem, such as 
the computation of a circular flower-bed. 

VII. Drawing. 

Figures (ornaments) which consist of circles, ellipses, 
ovals or their parts are studied. 

Whether the forms of marine animals (shell-fish, star- 
fish, etc.) or those of tropical plants would furnish suitable 
drawing material in this grade, must be reserved for special 
investigation. In like manner it is yet to be determined 
whether the development of art might not furnish useful 
material. 

B. EPOCH — THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION. 

I. Culture Material. 

The central material for this (the sixth or seventh) 
grade consists of two series, the one religious, the other 
historical. The religious has for its subject the conclusion 
of the life of Christ and the beginning of the Acts of 
the Apostles. By the side of this is placed the history of 
the renewer of the Christian religion and the story of the 
struggles for the preservation and spread of the Reforma- 
tion. The various points of contact between the two series 
are too manifest to require a detailed elaboration. In the 
case of both we emphasize the purity of purpose. The 
words of Peter, Acts iv. 20, correspond exactly to the utter- 
ance of Luther before the Diet of Worms. 

(It is of course self-evident that the treatment of such 
materials in an American public school is out of the ques- 
tion ; yet in the elaboration of these themes we can trace 
the principles which it is desired to illustrate, and for the 



SPECIAL METHODS. 115 

application of which we must endeavor to find new mate- 
rials, more suited to our needs and conditions. I shall 
therefore give only a brief synopsis of such portions as are 
of less importance and interest to us. — Tr.) 

In connection with the history of the Reformation the 
most important inventions (printing, gunpowder) are then 
discussed. Ziller would append the discussion of these, as 
well as of the voyages of discovery, to the history of the Ref- 
ormation, as an answer to the question : How was such a 
vigorous mental life of the German people brought about ? 
But we regard it as too difficult a question to be discussed 
profitably by children of this grade. The invention of 
printing is best inserted at that point in the history of the 
Reformation where the rapid dissemination of the theses 
of Luther comes under discussion. Here the question may 
be asked : How was such a rapid distribution possible ? In 
order that the progress of the story may not be interrupted 
too long, the technical part of printing may be discussed in 
the natural-science hour. 

The invention of gunpowder is most appropriately dis- 
cussed immediately before the Thirty Years' War, because the 
entire mode of warfare here appears different from that pre- 
viously known . Ancient and modern times come into contact 
in tournaments, where bow and gun are in use side by side. 

In order to know the state of culture during the period of 
the Reformation, and the misery produced by the Thirty 
Years' War, various literary works bearing on this period 
are studied, which need not be here specified. 

II. Language. 

To the precursors of the Reformation belong two of the 
most important mediaeval poets : Walther von der Yogelweide 
and Wolfram von Eschenbach. 



116 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

a. Wolfram von Eschenbach. 

1. The legend of Arthur. 

2. The legend of the Holy Grail. 

3. Percival. 

b. Walther von der Vogelweide. — Various poems. 
On the basis of these an answer will be sought to the ques- 
tion : What were the subjects treated by the Minnesing- 
ers ? Court-life is discussed in connection with Goethe's 
poem, " The Harper." Mediaeval poetry as a whole is studied 
from the standpoint of literature. Within this period the 
rise of lyric song also occurs, which is treated according to 
its varying character as folk-song, war-song, etc. 

In connection with Luther's translation of the Bible are 
discussed : — 

1. Luther's influence upon the German language. 

2. The nature of Biblical poetry. 

Materials for composition : — 

1. The legend of the Holy Grail. 

2. The legend of Percival. 

3. Luther's youth. 

4. Luther at the Wartburg. 

5. Luther's services to the German people. 

6. How folk songs were produced. 

7. The Meistergesang (Mastersong). 

8. Soldier life in the Thirty Years' War. 

III. Geography. 

Astronomical Geography is studied in connection with 
the history of the Eeformation. Copernicus (1473-1545), 
Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1653-1727) are the re- 



SPECIAL METHODS. 117 

formers of astronomical science, and are of importance not 
only to the history of astronomy, but also to the history of 
modern thought and culture as a whole. Like the church 
reformers, these champions of the new world-view had to 
suffer persecution, and that not from the Catholic side only 
(Melanchthon) . Thus we find even undesirable points of 
relation between the central material and geography. But 
astronomical geography finds support at this point from yet 
another side, viz., from the history of the voyages of discov- 
ery which has preceded. At that time the chief object was 
the discussion of the discovered countries ; now follows 
astronomical geography, to the discussion of which we are 
urged by the voyages of Columbus. 

The material separates into ten unities : — 

1. Globe shape of the earth. 

2. Size of the earth. 

3. Motion about its axis. 

4. Latitude and longitude. 

5. The terrestrial globe. 

6. Planispheres. 

7. The earth's motion about the sun. 

8-9. Eclipses of the sun and moon ; distance and true 
size of sun and moon. 

10. The calendar. (According to Eein, Pickel, and 
Scheller in the " Seventh School Year," p. 73, where hints 
are given for methodical treatment.) 

Ziller and Just demand as a special unity in connection 
with the history of the Reformation : The places in which 
Luther was active. In connection with this it would be 
proper to ask the question : What was the appearance of a 
German city at the time of the Reformation ? 

Additional geographical unities (in the Thirty Years' 
War) : The country in which the Thirty Years' War began : 
Bohemia and Moravia. The country from which the Prot- 



118 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

estants first received help : Denmark. The country from 
which the savior of the Eeformation came : Sweden and 
Norway. The Polar expeditions (as the complements of 
the voyages of discoveries in a geographical sense). 

IV. Nature Study. 

(a) With astronomical geography. 

1. Gravitation. 

2. Explanation of the orbit of the earth (Centrip- 

etal and Centrifugal force). 

3. How do we know that the earth is flattened at 

the poles ? (The Pendulum.) 

4. Clocks (in connection with the measuring of 

degrees and time relations). 

5. The atmosphere and the barometer as the means of 

measuring altitude and humidity (Mercury). 

6. The aqueous phenomena of the air (the three 

physical forms. Electricity may be treated 
as a special unity). 

7. How are we informed as to the condition of the 

sun ? (Analysis of light ; the rainbow.) 

8. Light and heat (in connection with the question : 

How is it that it is always cold in the upper 
strata of air, notwithstanding the sunshine ?). 
(The Thermometer.) 

9. Lenses. 

(b) With physical geography. 

10. The principal facts of geology (in connection with 

the hot springs of Bohemia and Iceland). 

11. The principal industry of the Bohemian Forest 

(Glass and its manufacture). 

12. Northern fauna and flora (in connection with 

Scandinavia and the Arctic Ocean). 



SPECIAL METHODS. 119 

(c) With inventions. 

13. Gunpowder and its composition (expansion of 

gases ; oxygen and combustion.) 

(d) With history. 

14. Hydraulics. 

15. The fire-engine. 

(See Geography : the appearance of a German city at the 
time of the Reformation.) 

In order to meet possible objections, we remark here, 
that the several groups in the preceding arrangement are 
by no means always to be regarded as unities. On closer 
inspection many of them will resolve themselves into groups 
of unities. Then, too, it must not be overlooked that 
several unities may be mutually related. The attention 
must, therefore, be directed not only to the transverse sec- 
tion of the course of study, but also to the longitudinal 
section, i.e., besides the proper co-ordination of the branches 
of study, the proper sequence of the topics within each 
branch is to be carefully provided for, lest the teaching 
of natural science should resolve itself into a number of 
incoherent observations. We have not aimed to give the 
details in this direction, but only to point out the wealth 
of material in natural science, and to give hints for a 
proper selection. 

V. Singing. 

(The songs and choruses learned during this year are 
again brought into intimate relation to the other subjects 
of study by selecting them from authors treating this 
period ; a comparatively easy task for German schools, 
which have such a wealth of material to select from. It 
is the constant aim to go to the original sources, and to 
make even the character of the songs sung harmonize with 
and support the central material. — Tr.) 



120 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERB ART. 

VI. Arithmetic. 

The topics considered during this (sixth) school year are 
multiplication and division of fractions, and their combi- 
nation. The material is taken partly from the thought 
material, partly from social life. With reference to the 
former we add a few illustrations : — 

(a) In connection with Mathematical Geography. 

It is to be computed what time it is in Cologne when the 
clock in the tower of St. Nicholas in Altenburg strikes seven. 

Altenburg is situated 10 degrees east from Paris (241 de- 
grees east of Ferro). Cologne lies 4J degrees east of Paris 
(24^- degrees east of Ferro). Therefore the difference of 
degrees is 5^-. (Review of Subtraction.) For every degree 
there is a difference of 4 minutes of time ; consequently it 
is seven o'clock in Cologne 5-J x 4 = 22 minutes later than 
with us. 

Conversely, the difference of degrees can be computed 
from the difference of time. In the larger railway stations 
west and east of Berlin the difference of time between that 
station and the Imperial capital is always given. 

From the diameter of the earth its circumference can be 
computed by multiplication; from the circumference, the 
diameter by division. (The computation of the sphere in 
general should be borne in mind.) 

(6) In connection with Natural Science. 

From the difference of barometric indications in meas- 
uring altitudes, the altitude of certain points may be de- 
termined; conversely, from the altitude, the barometric 
indication. 

The average thermometer reading for a day or, as is cus- 
tomary in meteorology, for a week (or a month, as in 
the United States. — Tr.), is determined by addition and 
division. 



SPECIAL METHODS. 121 

(c) In connection with History. 

Computation of an army corps in the Thirty Years' War 
in the vicinity of Altenburg, Germany. (The details would 
not interest American readers. The problem involves the 
elements of Percentage also. The author admits that the 
proper selection of the arithmetical material is a most 
difficult problem. — Tr.) 

VII. Drawing. 

In a previous grade, in connection with geometry, the 
circle and those lines which are constructed by means of 
the circle have been drawn. These lines were also applied 
in various combinations. Now the circular line appears in 
connection with the straight line, and these are applied in 
the study of the industrial art that nourished at the time 
of the Eeformation. A careful selection of material is of 
course needed here. 

ILLUSTRATIVE LESSON. 

TREATMENT OF THE NUMBER 3. 
(By De. Kabl Jtjst, Altenburg.) 

Aim — How many persons were in the home of the little girl of 
Sternthal (first fairy tale) when her father and mother were yet alive ? 

Clearness (Analysis and Synthesis 1). — There was first her 
father (1), then her mother (1 + 1), and then the good little girl 
(2 + 1). Together there were therefore three (3). 

But now her father died (3 — 1), and there were left mother and 
daughter; then her mother died too (2 — 1), and the little girl was 
left alone. At last the little girl went away (1 — 1), and there was 
nobody left in the house. 

After the counting, adding and subtracting as far as 3 have been 
practiced by means of members of the family, the abacus or other 
objects, there follows : — 



122 THE PEDAGOGY OF HERBART. 

Association 1. — Associating exercises are practiced by means of 
sticks, cubes or other objects. 
Lay 1, 2, 3 sticks. 

From 3 sticks take away 1, 2, 3 sticks, etc. 

Synthesis 2. — With these are connected exercises in Multiplication 
and Division (Partition). Clap your hands once, twice, three times. 

lxl, 2x1, 3x1. 
Raise your arm once, twice, three times. 
Show me 3 fingers, 2 fingers, 1 finger. 

1x3, 1x2, lxl. 
Lay 3 pennies in 3 heaps. 
Lay 3 pennies in 2 heaps. (1 remains.) 
Lay 3 pennies in 1 heap. 

3-3, 3-2, 3 - 1 ; \ of 3, * of 3. 
Lay 2 pennies in 2 heaps. 
Lay 2 pennies in 1 heap. 



of 2, 2 - 2. 



Association 2. — Show me 3 sticks. 

Show me 2 sticks. 

Show me 1 stick. 

Let 3 boys come forward and divide these 3 chestnuts. 

System. — These resulting series are now systematically arranged 

as follows : — 

12 3, 3 2 1, lxl, 1x3, 3-3, 2-2, 1 + 1. 

1 + 1, 1 + 2, 2x1, 1x2, 3-2, 2-1. 

2 + 1, 3x1, lxl, 3-1. 
3-1, 1-1. 

2-2, 3-2. 
1-1. 

Method. — In order that the completed series which have been pre- 
sented so far only in sequence may also find independent application, 
especially also suited to the social relation of the children, the follow- 
ing methodic exercises will be useful : — 

Name 3 boys. 

Which of you has 3 brothers or sisters ? Or 2 ? Or only 1 brother ? 
1 sister? 

If I have 3 pennies and give 1 penny to a poor man ? 



ILLUSTRATIVE LESSONS. 123 

But if I give away 2 of them ? Or all 3 ? 
Name for me what you have 2 times. (2 eyes, 2 ears, etc.) 
And what only 1 time ? 

What can you find in this room 2 times ? (2 blackboards, 2 doors.) 
What 3 times ? (3 tables, 3 bookcases, etc.) 
Only 1 time ? (1 stove, 1 desk, etc.) 

When mamma has 2 pears and divides them among 3 children, how 
much does each get ? 

Children will soon easily make similar illustrations, and thus stim- 
ulate self-activity immensely, a fact which is of the utmost importance 
in education. 

Additional oral and written exercises may be as follows : — 

How many must we put with 2 to make it 3 ? 

How many must we take from 3 to make it 1 ? 

Before 3 comes ? 

After 1 comes ? 

Show me the first button. 

Show me the second button. 

Show me the third button. 

3 = 1 + 1 + 1. 
3 = 2 + 1. 
How often is 1 contained in 3 ? 
How often is 1 contained in 2 ? 
\ of 2 ? 

| of 3 ? f of 3 ? 
1 + 1 + 1 - 2 ? 
3x1-2? 3x1-1? 
3+3+2? 
During intermission or at the time for rest exercise the children 
may learn counting-out rhymes, which assist counting : e.g., — 
One, two, three, the bumble-bee, 
The rooster crows and out goes he. 



104 



EDUCATION. 



Compayres History of Pedagogy. 

Translated and Edited by W. H. Payne, Chancellor of the University of Nash- 
ville and President of the Peabody Normal College ; with Introduction, Notes, 
References, and an Index. Cloth. 618 pages. Retail price, $1.75. Special 
price for class use. 

IN one volume of moderate size the reader will find an interesting, 
instructive, and comprehensive account of all the greater move- 
ments in the history of human thought as it bears on education. The 
great need of the teacher is breadth of view, and an adequate survey 
of the whole field of educational activity, and these wholesome and 
necessary endowments can come only from a study of the history of 
education. For this high purpose it is safe to say that there is no 
other book in any language which has the excellences of Compayrd's 
History of Pedagogy. 



W. T. Harris, U. S. Cotrir of Edu- 
cation, Washington ; It is indispensable 
among histories of education. 

G. Stanley Hall, Pres. of Clark 
Univ., Worcester, Mass. : It is the best 
and most comprehensive universal history 
of education in English. The translator 
has added valuable notes. 

Irwin Shepard, Pres. of State Nor- 
mal School, Winona, Minn. : We adopted 
immediately upon its publication, and are 
now using it with great satisfaction in a 
class of sixty members. Through the aid 
of this book, the subject has assumed a 
new interest and importance to all our 
teachers and students. 

Gabriel Campayre, Chambres des 
Deputes, Paris : Votre traduction me 
Darait excellente et je vous remercie des 
soins que vous y avez mis. J'ai grand 
Dlaisir a me relire dans votre langue, 
d'autant que vous n'avez rien neglige 
pour 1'impression materielle. 

J. W. Stearns, Prof, of the Science 
and Art of Teaching, Univ. of Wis. : It 
will, I believe, serve to increase interest in 
the history of educational thought and ex- 
perience, — an end greatly to be desired. 



M. A. Newell, State Supt. of Educa- 
tion, Baltimore, Md.: It is a very valuable 
addition to our pedagogic literature ; it is 
as brief as the breadth of the subject would, 
allow, and is comprehensive and philo- 
sophical. The notes and index added by 
Professor Payne very much increase th* 
value of the work. 

E. H. Russell, Prin. of State Normal 
School, Worcester, Mass.: I say unhesi- 
tatingly that it is a very valuable edition 
to the list of first-rate books for teachers 
I have put it into the hands of our senior 
class, and have recommended it to our 
graduates. 

N. M. Butler, Prin. of N. Y. Coll. 
for Training of Teachers: It should be in 
the hands of every teacher, every normal- 
school student, and on the list of every 
" reading circle." I predict for the book 
the greatest success, for it deserves it. 

E. E. Higbee, late State Supt. of Pub- 
lic Instruction, Harrisburg, Penn. : I 
hope it may be introduced into all the nor- 
mal schools of this State, and give a dig- 
nified impetus to studies of such character, 
so much needed and so valuable. 



EDUCATION. 



io5 



Compayre s Lectures on Pedagogy. 

Translated and Edited by W. H. Payne, Chancellor of the University of Nash- 
ville and President of the Peabody Normal College. Cloth. 500 pages. Retail 
price, #1.75. Special price for class use. 

THIS is a companion volume to the Author's History of Peda» 
GOGY and is characterized by the qualities that are so conspic- 
uous in the earlier volume ; it is comprehensive, clear, accurate, and 
is written with rare critical insight. To have an original and superior 
mind elaborate a systematic theory of education out of the best his- 
toric material accessible, and present as its complement a revised 
series of methods, would be thought an invaluable service to the 
teaching profession, but this is precisely what M. Compayre has 
done in this charming volume. It is the most original and satisfac- 
tory manual for teachers that has ever appeared in English. 



Jas. MacAlister, Supt. of Public 
Schools, Philadelphia, Pa. : I have known 
the book ever since it appeared, and re- 
gard it as the best work in existence on 
the Theory and Practice of Education. 

Thomas J. Morgan, recently Prin. 
State Normal School, Providence, R. I. : 
It seems to me the best book on the sub- 
ject which has yet been published in 
America. 

H. B. TWltmeyer, Coll. of Northern 
III., Dakota, III. : It is the best resume I 
have ever seen on the study and practice 
of teaching. 

Richard Edwards, Supt. Public 
instruction, Springf,eld, III. ; I value the 



book very highly indeed, and think it will 
have great effect in uplifting the profes- 
sion of teachers in this country. 

W. W. Parsons, Pres. Ind. State 
Normal School: I pronounce it an excel- 
lent popular treatise on the Science of 
Education. I consider it a valuable addi- 
tion to our professional literature. 

Christian Union ; Especially in- 
genious is the chapter upon the education 
of the attention ; that, too, upon the cul- 
ture of the memory is of great practical 
value. We should like to put this work 
into the hands of every instructor, whether 
parent or teacher. 



Psychology Applied to Education. 

By Gabriel Compayre. Translated by Wm. H. Payne, Chancellor of the 
University of Nashville. Cloth. 225 pages. Retail price, 90 cents. 

IN the statement of doctrine and application, this manual is profound 
without being obscure, and simple without being commonplace. 
There are thousands of teachers who have neither the taste nor the 
leisure to master the details of educational science, nor even to read the 
profounder treatises, but who are anxious to find a rational basis for 
their art ; for such there is no book that can be commended so highly. 



EDUCATION. 107 



Appercep Hon . 



A Monograph oji Psychology and Pedagogy. By Dr. Karl Lange. Trans, 
lated by the following named members of the Herbart Club: Elmer E. Brown, 
Charles De Garmo, Mrs. Eudora Hailmann, Florence Hall, George F. James, 
L. R. Klemm, Ossian H. Lang, Herman T. Lukens, Charles A. McMurry, 
Frank McMurry, Theo. B. Noss, Levi L. Seeley, Margaret K. Smith, and edited 
by Charles De Garmo, President of Swarthmore College. Cloth. 279 pages. 
Retail price, #1.00. 

THIS is perhaps the most popular scientific monograph on education 
that has appeared in Germany in recent times. It has the rare 
merit of being at once thoroughly scientific and intensely interesting 
and concrete. Not a little of its value arises from the fact that it 
approaches the problems of education along the highway that teachers 
must actually pass in order to solve them. Its standpoint is, in brief, 
the living, developing mirid of the child itself. Apperception is a 
single word comprehending the whole complex of processes known as 
mental assimilation. It is here considered in its original nature, and 
in its application to instruction and moral training, both as regards the 
developing child, its interests, powers, and mental stores, on the one 
hand, and the selection, arrangement, and methodical treatment of 
the subject-matter of instruction, on the other. The scientific value 
of the volume is enhanced by a somewhat extended chapter on the 
history of the term Apperception, found at the close of the book. 
The prediction is not unwarranted that this unpretentious monograph 
will awaken more universal interest and stimulate more educational 
thoughts than any other single work that has been issued in the 
United States during the last quarter of a century, for it ushers in a 
new epoch in the popular study of education in this country, that of 
scientific treatment enriched by a vast wealth of concrete, interesting 
material. In it science has become popular treatment, and popular 
treatment scientific exposition. 



Edward T. Pierce- Prin. of Nor- 
mal School, Los Angeles, Cal.: I am 
more than pleased with the book. It is a 
fascinating book to a teacher who is 
searching after truth. I shall not only 
recommend it to teachers, but urge them 
to get the book. (Nov. 25, 1893.) 

L. R. Klemm, of the Bureau of Edu- 



cation, Washington, D. C: There are few 
educational books on the American mar- 
ket that come up to this in usefulness. 
It -has qualities which will make it a 
favorite text-book in Normal Schools and 
other pedagogical institutions. The little 
book will be hailed with delight, and justly 
so, by the great number of teachers. 

(Aug. 23, 1893.) 



io8 EDUCATION. 



Manual of Empirical Psychology. 

An authorized translation from the German of Dr. G. A. Lindner, by Charles 
De Garmo, Ph.D., Professor of Modern Languages in State Normal Univer« 
sity, 111. Cloth. 274 pages. Price by mail, #1.10. Introduction price, #1.00. 

THIS is the best Manual of Psychology ever prepared from the 
Herbartian standpoint, which, briefly characterized, is the 
standpoint of pedagogics. No other school of psychologists have 
thrown so much light upon the solution of the problems arising in the 
instruction and training of youth ; and no other author of this school 
has been so successful as Lindner in compact yet comprehensive and 
intelligible statement of psychological facts and principles. The book 
is what its name indicates, a psychology arising from the given data 
of experience ; yet there is no psychology in English which does so 
much toward arousing an intelligent interest in the advanced depart- 
ments of rational psychology and philosophy in general. 

That an effective educational psychology must be based upon a 
concrete experience, rather than upon the a priori forms of mind is 
reasonably evident, but Lindner is more than a mere recorder of ex 
perience. He unfolds his subject as a true inductive science, never 
losing sight of the organic development of mental life. This gives 
him a great pedagogical significance. Again, he is always interesting. 
His explanations are lucid, pointed, and self-consistent, while every 
department of science and of experience has yielded its choicest facts 
to enrich the contents of the book. 

The work is especially recommended for normal schools, reading 
circles, and higher institutions of learning. 

W. H. Councill, Prin. State Nor- 
mal and Industrial School, Ala.: The 
work possesses every merit necessary to 



G, Stanley Hall, Pres. of Clark 

Univ., Worcester, Mass. : The practical 
applicability of this stand-point and book 
makes its merits. 

G. Williamson Smith, Pres. of 
Trinity Coll., Hartford, Conn. : It is an 
original work, on well conceived principles 
and carried on by methods of induction 
approved by all. 

P. Louis Soldan, Prin. St. Louis 
Normal and High School: Lindner's 
Psychology is one of the best works, if not 
the best, of the vigorous school to which 
he belongs. The translation is an im- 
provement on the original. 



give it a permanent place among the high- 
est order of text books. 

G. S. Albee, Pres. State Normal 
School, Oshkosh, Wis. : Only the most 
original and realistic teachers have been 
able to obtain results in class work which 
lifted the study of psychology above con- 
tempt. This key-note of the best and 
most definitely true teaching appears upon 
nearly every page of Lindner. The author 
may congratulate himself that his Ameri- 
can editor was a clear-minded psychologist 



EDUCATION. 



log 



The Essentials of Method. 



T 



Revised Edition. A discussion of the essential forms of right method in teach- 
ing by Charles De Garmo, Ph. D., President of Swarthmore College. Cloth. 
133 pages, Retail price, 65 cents. Special price for class use. 

HIS little volume is an initial work in the science of methods, no 
attempt of its kind having previously been made in English. It 
assumes, therefore, an importance and significance which are not 
measured by its size or price. 

It comprises three parts : 1 . The psychological basis. This con- 
sists mostly of a discussion of the nature of the individual and the 
general notion, and of the true nature of mental assimilation, or ap- 
prehension ; 2 . The necessary stages of rational methods as deter- 
mined by the psychological basis. We have here an exposition of the 
functions of observation, of generalization and of the application of 
generalizations in fixing and utilizing knowledge ; 3 . Practical illustra- 
tions, showing how the teacher may consciously observe these stages 
in his daily work in the school room. The Revised Edition gives both 
a popular and a scientific explanation of the modern doctrine of Apper- 
ception. 

Experience shows that the book is admirably adapted to training- 
classes in normal schools, and to city or village reading circles, 
while no live teacher can afford to remain partially or wholly uncon- 
cious of what it reveals. 



J. W. Stearns, Ph.D., Prof, of Pe- 
dagogy, in Wisconsin State Univ. : It is 
the first real step toward the development 
of a science of methods in this country. 

B. A. Hinsdale, Prof, of Pedagogy, 
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor : A very 
good book indeed for students of educa- 
tional science. I show my opinion of it 
by putting it on a short list of books that 
I recommend to teachers. 

T. H. Balliet, Stipt. of Schools, 
Springfield, Mass.: I think it has as 
much sound thought to the square inch as 
anything I know of in pedagogics. 

Geo. Morris Philips, Ph.D., Prin. 
State Normal School, West Chester, Pa.: 
An unusually excellent little book ; there 
'"■an be no question of its merit. 



J. C. Greenough, Prin. of West- 
field Normal School, Mass. : A small 
book but a great work. One of the best 
pedagogical books ever published in the 
English language. 

M. L. Seymour, Prof, in State Nor- 
mal School, Chico, Cal. : It is a book 
without a peer or rival in the discussion 
of the underlying principles of methods in 
teaching. It should be the daily compan- 
ion of every teacher until fully assimi- 
lated. 

R. G. Boone, Prof, of Pedagogy, 
Univ. of Ind.: It seems to me very sug« 
gestive and along right lines as counteract- 
ing the wide-spread tendency to adopt de- 
vice and formula. It promises teachers a 
rich return for the most careful perusal. 



yi2 



EDUCATION. 



The Science of Education. 



Translated from the German of Herbart by Mr. and Mrs. Felkin. With an 
introduction by Oscar Browning. 268 pages. Cloth. Retail price, $1.00. 

HERBART began the study of education and of the human mind as 
a private tutor of boys of gentle birth and nurture intended to 
receive the higher education. His experiences, therefore — and with 
him theory and practice always went hand in hand — are of especial 
value to teachers in public schools. 

" Mr. and Mrs. Felkin deserve the thanks of all who are interested 
in education by making these writings of Herbart accessible to English 
readers. They have accomplished their work with the greatest care 
and self-denying zeal. The translation is as readable as is consistent 
with an exact rendering of the original. If it is carefully studied, as it 
ought to be, there will be no difficulty in understanding it. Their in- 
troduction is probably the best account of Herbart which has appeared 
in our tongue." — From Mr. Browning's Introduction. 



L. R. Klemm, of the Bureau of 
Education, Washington, D. C: It is with 
pardonable admiration for your " pluck " 
that 1 lay down Herbart's Science of edu- 
cation after a thorough examination. I 
say " pluck," because it certainly needs a 
good deal of aggressive courage to offer 
the teachers of America such a work for 
professional study. The book is happily 
introduced by the chapter on the life of 
Herbart, his philosophy and principles of 
education, and the two analyses by the 
translators. They offer a very convenient 
key to the treasures of Herbart's book. 
I like the translation ; have compared 
whole pages with the original, and am 
well pleased. It is a very creditable work. 
As a member of the profession of teachers, 
I offer you my gratitude for this publica- 
tion. {Sept. 25, 1893.) 

S. G. Williams, Professor of Phi- 
losophy, Cornell University, Ithaca, 
N.Y.: I have read the book carefully and 
compared portions with the original, and 
I feel that you deserve the thanks of 
English speaking teachers for placing 



within their reach the work of this leader of 
modern German pedagogic thought. The 
translation is so neat and so true to the 
original that it not infrequently makes 
the concise and somewhat poetic diction 
of the author more readily comprehensible 
than the original. (Oct. 16, 1893.) 

Educational C our ant, Louisville, 
Ky.: It is a work that no educator can 
afford not to read and study. The volume 
will influence our theory and practice for 
years to come, and he who remains ig- 
norant of its contents can justly be ac- 
cused of wilful ignorance of what most 
intimately concerns him. 

Science, New York: Following the 
entertaining sketch of Herbart's life the 
translators have given a review of Her- 
bart's philosophy, together with a synop- 
sis of the two works which follow and 
form the principal portion of the book. 
The review has evidentlybeen written from 
a thorough acquaintance with Herbart's 
writings and is an additional aid to our un- 
derstanding of his principles. 



EDUCATION. 



Habit in Education. 

An Essay in Pedagogical Psychology. Translated from the German of Dr. Paui 
Radestock by F. A. Caspari, Teacher of German, Girls' High School, Balti 
more ; with an Introduction by Dr. G. Stanley Hall, President of Clark Uni- 
versity, Worcester, Mass. Cloth. 124 pages. Retail price, 75 cents. 

DR. Radestock discusses in this little book the various habits 
in the acquisation of which educators can vastly aid their pupils, 
Not content with giving the result of his own experience and study of. 
the principles forming the psycho-physiological basis of habit, Dr. 
Radestock offers the student choice extracts from the works of such 
widely different authorities as Herbart and Spencer, Tito Vignoli, 
Ribot, Dumont, and Dr. Maudsley, and places clearly before the read 
er the two conflicting pedagogical problems which daily confront the 
teacher, yet to one or the other of which he must look as the aim and 
end of all his efforts: — Which brings the better result? To follow 
Rousseau, who says : " The only habit which a child should be per- 
mitted to acquire is, that it habituate itself to nothing in particular," or 
Bacon, who says : " Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's 
life, let men, by all means, endeavor to obtain good customs. Cer- 
tainly, custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years ; this 
we call education, which is in effect but early custom." 



John Dewey, Prof, of Philosophy, 
Univ. of Mich., Ann Arbor: Radestock 
has been for some time favorably known 
by means of his psychological monographs, 
of which this upon Habit is no doubt the 
best, as it is also without doubt the most 
suggestive and fruitful of all monographs 
upon this most important subiect. 

Julius H. Seelye, Pres. of Amherst 
Coll.: I am very much pleased with it. 
It is a valuable contribution to both educa- 
tional theory and practice. 

J. W. Stearns, Prof, of Science and 
Art of Teaching, Univ. of Wis.: You 
have certainly conferred a great favor upon 
teachers by placing so admirable a treatise 
within their reach, and I hope it may be- 
come widely known. 

E. A. Sheldon, State Normal School, 
Oswego, N, Y, ; I am much pleased with 



the clear and concise statement of princi- 
ples, and the wide range of thought in- 
cluded in the book. It deserves a place 
in every teacher's library. 

S. N. Fellows, Prof, of Mental and 
Moral Philosophy and Didactics, State 
Univ. of la. : I regard it as a valuable con- 
tribution to pedagogical literature. It 
should find a place in every teacher's 
library. 

Nicholas Murray Butler, Prin, 
of N. Y. City College for Training of 
Teachers: It is a wonderful production 
and every Normal School and Training 
College in this country ought to use it. 

B. H. Russell, Prin. of State Nor 
mal School, Worcester, Mass.: It will 
prove a rare " find " to teachers who are 
seeking to ground themselves in the philo- 
sophy of their art 



EDUCATION. 



Rosmini's Method in Education. 



Translated from the Italian of Antonio Rosmini Serbati by Mrs. William 
Grey, whose name has been widely known in England for many years past as 
a leader in the movement for the higher education of women. Cloth. 389 pages. 
Retail price, #1.50. 

THIS is a work of singular interest for the educational world, and 
especially for all those who desire to place education on a 
scientific basis. 

It is an admirable exposition of the method of presenting knowl- 
edge to the human mind in accordance with the natural laws of its 
development ; and the disciples of Frcebel will find in it not only a 
perfectly independent confirmation, but the true psychological estimate 
of the principles of Frcebel's kindergarten system. We believe that 
this translation of the work of the great Italian thinker will prove a 
boon to all English-speaking lovers of true education. 



Thomas Davidson : It is the most 
important pedagogical work ever written. 

J. W. Stearns, Prof, of Science and 
Art of Teaching, Univ. of Wisconsin : 
No one who cares to understand the psy- 
chological grounds upon which right 
primary methods must rest can afford to 
pass this book by. It is a clear, simple, 
and methodical inquiry into the develop- 
ment of the infant mind, and the kind of 
knowledge adapted to the different stages 
of its growth, and ought to be at once re- 
ceived with favor by American teachers. 

I shall take great pleasure in calling 
the attention of my classes to this book, 
and to the list published by your house, 
which seems to me composed of very val- 
uable works. 

Mary Sheldon Barnes, formerly 
Prof, of History in Wellesley Coll.,Mass. ; 
This is a very exceptional work, in that it 
is at the same time philosophical and 
practical. I feel as if, in the midst of all 
the fragmentary, erratic, commonplace 
stuff that is usually relegated to the name 
of Pedagogies, something worthy, clear, 
and intellectually inspiring had at length 
appeared. For myself, I wish to under- 



stand it thoroughly from cover to cover ; 
for while I may not always agree with it, 
still it will compel me to define more 
clearly just what I do think — a most val- 
uable intellectual service. 

The Nation : The book shows the 
influence of psychology in determining all 
methods of pedagogy, and moves towards 
the practical spirit of modern times in that 
it has no speculative problems to solve, 
and no special intellectual ends like those 
of philosophy to condition the mode of 
education it defends. 

New York World : His ideal of life 
is so high, his motives are everywhere so 
noble, that the very perusal of his book 
will be itself a sort of education to parents 
and teachers. And we should say that 
no parent or teacher having at heart the 
highest good of the children committed to 
his care can afford to be without this book. 
It will impress those who read it with the 
importance of education and of its far- 
reaching power, and render teachers earn- 
est in tieir work. The translation is well 
done. Mrs. Grey, who, a most excellent 
Italian scholar, has come to the work with 
every advantage. 



EDUCATION. 



ll S 



A Descriptive Bibliography of Education. 

Arranged by topics. By G. Stanley Hall, President of Clark University, 
Worcester, Mass., and John M. Mansfield. Cloth. 325 pages. Retail 
Price, $1.50. Interleaved:, $2.00. 

THIS is really the work of many years, and the sixty chief, as well 
as the minor topics, follow the order of a systematic course in 
pedagogy. In giving a brief of his reading a man really imparts his 
secret, and in a sense gives the chief aid he is able to render to others 
One who would read the best book indicated under each of these top 
ics would be himself a master in the field of Pedagogy. 

W. T. Harris, U. S. Cotrir of Edu- 



R. H. Quick, hi London Journal 
Editcation : It is a most useful work and 
must have cost the writers a vast amount 
of labor. 

The Schoolmaster, London, Eng.: 
Indexes and bibliographies are indispen- 
sable in these days of making many books, 
and many a person interested in pedagog- 
ical literature should be indebted to Dr. 
Hall for the well-arranged work before us. 



cation, Washington : It is valuable to 
every teacher who wishes to see what a 
wonderful wealth of excellent books on 
education there are. 

H. B. Adams, Assoc. Prof, of His- 
tory, Johns Hofkins Univ., Baltimore, 
Md. : The variety of educational subjects 
here represented is no less gratifying than 
surprising. 



School Hygiene. 



Or, The Laws of Health in Relation to School Life. By Arthur Newsholme, 
M.D., Diplomate in Public Health, University of London. Cloth. 150 pages. 
Retail price, 75 cents. 

THIS admirable compend of Sanitary Science is already in use in 
the English training-school. It is indispensable for those who 
are erecting new school-buildings or modifying old ones. It not only 
contains compact information about school surroundings and con- 
struction, but is filled with practical suggestions from a hygienic point 
of view on all the varied phases of school life. It is eminently 
adapted to public school, and college libraries. 



N. B. Jour, of Ed. : No man occu- 
pies such rank with scholars and medical 
experts on all matters pertaining to sani- 
tation and school hygiene as Dr. News- 
holme. 

Athenaeum, London : Wholly mer- 
itorious and altogether free from any blem- 
ishes that we can find. There is nothing 



to be said of it but that it is excellent 
Education, Boston; Very valuable 
information, suggestion, and instruction 
in regard to a subject of which many 
teachers and school officers know so little. 
Queries, Buffalo, N. Y. : It should 
accomplish much good in the direction 
of preserving the health of children. 



education. 

Compayr^'S History Of Pedagogy. " The best and most comprehensive history of 

Education in English." — Dr. G. S. Hall. $1.75. 
Compayr6's Lectures On Teaching. "The best book in existence on the theory and 

practice of education." — Supt. MacAlister, Philadelphia. $1.75. 

Compayr6's Psychology Applied to Education. A clear and concise statement 

of doctrine and application on the science and art of teaching. 90 cts. 

De GarmO'S Essentials Of Method. A practical exposition of methods with illustra- 
tive outlines of common school studies. 65 cts. 

De GarmO's Lindner's Psychology. The best Manual ever prepared from the 
Herbartian standpoint. $1.00. 

GUI'S Systems Of Education. '* It treats ably of the Lancaster and Bell movement 
in education, — a very important phase." — Dr. W. T. Harris. $1.25. 

Hall's Bibliography of Pedagogical Literature. Covers every department of 

education. Interleaved, *$2.oo. $1.50. 
Herford's Student's Froebel. The purpose of this little book is to give young people 
preparing to teach a brief ytt full account of Froebel's Theory of Education. 75 cts. 

Malleson's Early Training of Children. "The best book for mothers I ever 

read." — Elizabeth P. Peabody. 75 cts. 

Marwedel's Conscious Motherhood. The unfolding of the child's mind in the 

cradle, nursery and Kindergarten. $2.00. 
NeWSholme's SchOOl Hygiene. Already in use in the leading training colleges in 
England. 75 cts. 

Peabody's Home, Kindergarten, and Primary School. "The best book out- 
side of the Bible that I ever read." — A Leading Teacher. $1.00. 

PestalOZZi'S Leonard and Gertrude. "If we except 'Emile' only, no more im- 
portant educational book has appeared for a century and a half than ' Leonard and Ger- 
trude.' " — The Natio?i. 90 cts. 

RadestOCk'3 Habit in Education. " It will prove a rare ' find' to teachers who are 
seeking to ground themselves in the philosophy of their art." — E. H. Russell, Worces- 
ter Normal School. 75 cts. 

Richter's Levana ; or, The Doctrine of Education. "A spirited and scholarly 

book." — Prof. W. H. Payne. $1.40. 
ROSmini'S Method in Education. " The most important pedagogical work ever 
written." — Thomas Davidson. $1.50. 

ROUSSeau'S Emile. " Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject of 

Education." — R. H. Quick. 90 cts. 
Methods Of Teaching Modern Languages. Papers on the value and on methods 

of teaching German and French, by prominent instructors. 90 cts. 

Sanford's Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychology. The course 

includes experiments upon the Dermal Senses, Static and Kinassthetic Senses, Taste, 
Smell, Hearing, Vision, Psychophysic. In Press. 

Lange's Apperception : A monograph on Psychology and Pedagogy. Trans- 
lated by the members of the Herbart Club, under the direction of President Charles 
DeGarmo, of Swarthmore College. $1.00. 

Herbart's Science Of Education. Translated by Mr. and Mrs. Felken with a pref- 
ace by Oscar Browning. $1.00. 

Tracy's Psychology Of ChildhOOd. This is the first £*?«*rW treatise covering in a 
scientific manner the whole field of child psychology. Octavo. Paper. 75 cts. 
Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



